















*v*t^'«p» v*^*^ v^'V v*^ 

^V 1 '^Hg^' V«* -J^SlWi . °i»^ •JEM: V<* 






*^ ♦: 



5 '#, *..•' .« 







V** #&• \/ .'28fr V* .-ater- V* 



'o. V"XT» A 



^ *o 






W 








%*, 



•SK-*y * ••3W?-" .<* ? \ -flK ; * * °-w^ «^ 






7 ^°- V 



¥ ^°- 







;• >- -« . -.y«f/ /% ^SK-' . *^ 



♦♦^ .'ifito X,/ :A i\ ^** " .- 



> .•*••« 



^ y, 






^ %^^/ V^^\^ %-fffV \^ 









* ^ 












0* 






^L> > 




\r • I • •* ^. 



* «*° '-safe * X-^feA 







,4©< 



,♦ v^>°. v^y v^v v 



9 v* c£ • 






aP^K • 



<> •?.»• .0" 



r ^^ . % iS % v * 



L «> ..^? % % 



<* *••?• aC 







• T*. A* 



.**. 









C- ..i*SLL-. "o ,4* ..irtB^.'V .6"'..^^.'^ ^' 



> A «i .v'^ia-. ^^ :m&c. '+*<$ •v*^ia"- v,.* 






\ 

















' ..• 



> ^ 



*< 







°c 




•fev* 




*- . . * 






• ' "* 




4 • •• 



«b^ 
* ^ 



*< 




*o. »• 






°o 



• 1 •* 




o > 



bv T 



5°^ 






*cy 



bv T 



&8v A<±- 



6? 



SEERSHIP! 



THE MAGNETIC MIRROR. 



A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO THOSE WHO ASPIRE TO 



CLAIRVOYANCE-ABSOLUTE, 



ORIGINAL AND SELECTED FROM VARIOUS EUROPEAN AND 
ASIATIC ADEPTS. 



J 



PASCHAL BEVERLY RANDOLPH. 







BOSTON: 

RANDOLPH AND COMPANY. 

1870 . 
... v 









Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 

P. B. RANDOLPH. 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 



[Notick. — There being but a limited demand for a work of this charac- 
ter, only a very small edition has been printed, and the cost thereof has 
been divided among its purchasers equitably. If the ivork should ever be 
enlarged and reprinted, it will be circulated at a price barely covering cost of 
printing, binding, and advertising, as in the present case.~] 






■f\0 



H 



THE INNER SENSES. 



CLAIRVOYANCE, OR SOMNAMBULIC VISION; ITS ART AND CUL- 
TURE, WITH RULES FOR ITS ATTAINMENT. 

I trust I may be pardoned if I make another attempt to rescue 
the subject of somnambulic vision from the charlatanry of the day. 
In these days clairvoyance, which is a natural power inherent in 
the race, is regarded as a sort of forbidden, or rare, wonder, mixed 
up with mesmerism, fraud, circles, and so on, while it is also the 
garb under which more barefaced swindling is carried on than any 
other one^ift of God to civilized man. I hold it to be emphatically 
true, that 

No curtain hides jfrom view the spheres elysian, 
Save these poor shells of half transparent dust; 

While all that blinds the spiritual vision 
Is pride and hate and lust. 

And I believe clairvoyance to be the birthright of every human 
being ; that all will one day possess it ; that children will be born 
so ; and that even now, coarse as we are, some of us — a great per- 
centage of the people — can develop it to a most surprising extent. 
In the first place let it be distinctly understood that there are two 
sources of light — solar, planetary, and astral — adapted to mate- 
rial eyes, and that, independent of that, every globe in space is 
cushioned upon the ether, and that this ether is one vast bil- 
lowy sea of magnetic light, and is the media of an inner sense of 
sight, and the whole mystery Is at once cleared up, and the clap- 
trap of the charlatans at once exploded and exposed. And thus 
this wonderful jjower is resolved into the mere sensitive ability to 

come en rapport with this vast ocean of inner light, which may 

1 



2 INTERIOR VISION. 

quite easily be done, as will herein be briefly shown. All that is 
required is simply patience. 

Clairvoyance is the art and power of knowing or cognizing facts, 
things, and principles, by methods totally distinct from those usu- 
ally pursued in their attainment. I claim to have reduced it to a 
system, and to have evolved science from heterogeneity ; to have 
added new thought, new conception, opened new fields of investi- 
gation, and to have discovered the central magnetic law, underly- 
ing and subtending the evolutions of somnambulic phenomena, — 
a brief resume of which I herewith present. 

We are approaching the termination of the first stages of civi- 
lization, are bidding farewell to many of its modes, moods, opin- 
ions, sentiments, thoughts, and procedures, and are entering upon 
a new epoch of human history and might, destined to develop 
powers in man, now latent mainly, but which will yet revolutionize 
the globe. On earth man is greatest, mind the greatest part of 
man, and clairvoyance the greatest part of mind. . . . Clair- 
voyance depends upon a peculiar condition of the nerves and brain. 
It is compatible with the most robust health, albeit oftenest re- 
sulting from disordered nerves. The discovery consists in the 
knowledge of the exact method how, the precise spot where, and 
the proper time when, to apply the specific mesmeric current to any 
given person, in order to produce the Eoma and lucidity. A careful 
following of the rules herein laid down is generally sufficient to 
enable the aspirant to attain his or her end. 

At the start let it be distinctly understood that fear, doubt, ner- 
vous agitation, coarse habits, or bad intent, will retard success, 
and may prevent it altogether. 

When a person cannot be mesmerized through the eye, head, or 
by reverse passes, success often will follow if the clothes be wet 
with slightly vinegared water, just over the pit of the stomach and 
small of the back. If an operator acts, let his left hand cover the 
rear wet spot, his right the front one, while the gazing process con- 
tinues as before. Reason : The brain is not the only seat of ner- 
vous power ; and we can often reach and subdue it by and through 
the nerves, nervous matter, and ganglia, situate along and within 
the backbone. If tractors or magnets are u-sed, their points should 
be placed just as would be the mesmerizer's hands* and the experi- 
ment be continued as before. 



INTERIOR VISION. . 3 

At first, clairvoyance, like any movement, nervous or muscular, 
requires a special effort, but it soon becomes automatic, involun- 
tary, mechanical. Keep tour design constantly before you, 

AND YOUR SOUL AND INNER SENSES WILL MAKE GROOVES FOR THEM- 
SELVES, AND CONTINUE TO MOVE IN THEM AS CARS ON RAILS OR 

wheels in ruts. Let your groove be CLAin-voycmce I 

Lucidity is no gift, but a universal possibility common to the 
human race. (Idiots can and do have it.) It is latent, or still 
mind-power, and can be brought to the surface in a majority of 
cases. Omnia vincit labor! 

All mental action comes through nervous action, but in these 
cases the result must be reached outside our usual mental habi- 
tudes and paths. The person who attempts to reach clairvoyance, 
and gets discouraged after a few trials, don't merit the power. If 
you begin, either by agents or mesmerists, keep right on. Every 
experiment lands you one step nearer success, and that, too, whether 
you aim at psychometry, lucidity, or any one of the fifty phases 
or grades of occult power. 

Remember that physical conditions influence, modify, and de- 
termine mental states, whether these be normal or recondite and 
mysterious. 

Nor forget that pure blood gives pure power. If your blood is 
foul with scrofula, pork fat, rum, venereal, suspended menses (by 
nursing, cold, or, perchance, pregnancy), don't attempt clairvoy- 
ance till you are free from it. Artists prepare their paints, — you 
must prepare your body ; else no good picture comes, no lucidity 
follows. Sound lungs, stomach, kidneys, liver, brain, blood, 
heart, urinal vessels, womb, and pelvic apparatus are not absolute 
essentials, but good preparatives. Above all, the blood must be 
purified, vacated of its poisons,* rheums (alkalies, acids in excess), 
and be toned up to concert pitch, if you would enjoy the music of 
the spheres, and Jcnoiv beyond your outer knowing. 

Food, digestion, drinks, sleep, must all be attended to. Mes- 
meric subjects at first become quite passional, — the devil's bridge. 
Look out you don't fall through it, for true clairvoyance is coinci- 
dent only with normal appetites normally sated. Excess destroys 
it. Every passion, except the grosser, has a normal sphere. 

Clairvoyance is qualitative and quantitative, like all other men- 
tal forces. It is limited, fragmentary, incomplete, in all, because 



A INTERIOR VISION. 

we are all imperfect ; but no other being can occupy your or my 
ground, or be so great in our respective directions as we are. No 
one exactly is like us, — we precisely like nobody. We are like the 
world, —green spots and deserts, — arid here, frozen there, — fertile 
in one spot, sterile in another ; therefore we should cultivate our 
special loves ! Clairvoyant vigor demands attention to the law : 
"The eternal equation of vital vigor is, Eest equals exercise." Ke- 
member this, and retain your power. Clairvoyance is an affair of 
the air, food, drink, love, passion, light, sleep, health, rest, sun- 
shine, joy, music, labor, exercise, lungs, liver, blood, quite as much 
as of mesmerism and magnetic coma, for all mental operations are 
physically conditioned. 

Clairvoyance is an art, like any other. The elements exist, but 
to be useful must be systemized. It has hitherto been pursued, 
not rationally, but empirically, — as a blind habit, a sort of gym- 
nastics, a means to swindle people, and scarce ever under in- 
telligent guidance like the logical or mathematical or musical 
faculties of the soul, albeit more valuable than either, and like 
them, too, subject to the laws of growth. It is far-reaching, and, 
once attained, though the road is difficult, ampty repays the time 
and labor spent. It has been the study of nry life, and that knowl- 
edge, which enables me to demonstrate the laws governing it, and 
by which it may be developed, also enables me to understand and 
impart those which attend its aberrant phenomena. This mystic 
ground has hitherto been the prolific hot-bed of a host of noxious, 
dangerous superstitions and quackeries ; and I believe my own is 
the first attempt to reclaim it to rational investigation. 

Clairvo3^ance is a generic term, employed to express various de- 
grees and modes of perception, whereby one is enabled to cognize and 
know facts, things, and principles ; or to contact certain knowl- 
edges, without the use, and independent of, the ordinary avenues 
of sense. It is produced or attained in various degrees, by dif- 
ferent methods, and is of widely diverse grades and kinds, as 

A. Pyschometry, or nervous sensitiveness, wherein the subject 
does not see at all, but comes in magnetic contact with, first, the 
peculiar material emanations or sphere given off from every person 
or object in existence, and is analogous to the power whereby a 
dog finds his master in a crowd, or a hound hunts down a fugitive 
and pursues him unerringly, from having smelt a garment once 



INTERIOR VISION. O 

worn by that fugitive. By this sense of feeling persons come en 
rapport with others present, distant, dead, or alive, and when the 
sensitiveness is great, are enabled to sympathetically feel, hence 
describe, that person's physical, social, moral, amative, and intel- 
lectual condition, and, in extraordinary cases, can discern and de- 
tect diseases, both of mind, affections, and body, without, however, 
being qualified to treat or cure said aberrations. Every city in the 
land abounds with persons claiming to be " clairvoyants," who 
are not so in any sense whatever, but are, to a greater or less ex- 
tent, mere sensitives at best ; but, in by far the majority of ca- 
ses, such are rank impostors, fortune-tellers, and charlatans, who 
eke out a living by dint of a very little good guessing, and a great 
deal of tall lying. The majority are females of lax principles, 
who keep a lounge and drawn curtains, — pestilent vampyres, red- 
olent of filth moral, intellectual, and physical, who are loaded with 
the exuviae of death, and charge a man or woman with the very 
vapor of ruin itself. 

B. Pstchometry can be deepened into absolute perception by 
carefully noting the first and strongest impressions resultiDg from 
contact with a person, letter, or object, and afterward ascertaining 
the correctness of the verdict come to. A little careful experi- 
mentation will develop good results and demonstrate that clair- 
voyance is an attainable qualification, with proper patience and 
active effort. 

C. Intuition — the highest quality of the human mind — is la- 
tent in most people, developable in nearly all ; is trainable, and, 
when active, is the highest kind of clairvoyance. It is the effort- 
less, instantaneous perception of facts, principles, events, and 
things. The rule for its promotion is simply, When it tells a tale 
to test it at once. In a brief time the perceptions will grow clear- 
er, stronger, more full, frequent, and free. 

D. The differences between clairvoyance, feeling, or psychoin- 
etry, and intuition, are these : the first sees, the second feels, the 
third knows instantly. 

In our ordinary state, we see through a glass darkly ; in clair- 
voyance, we see with more or less distinctness ; in psychometry, 
we feel with greater or less intensity, and in intuition, we leap to 
results at a single bound. There are hundreds who imagine they 
possess one or all of these faculties or qualifications, and arrogate 



INTERIOR VISION. 



much importance, merely because the ideas have made a strong 
impression on their minds ; or perhaps they have seen one or two 
visions or spectral sparks or flashes. Such are what they claim to 
be, only in the wish. They need training. For clairvoyance is a 
thing of actual system, rule, and law, and whoever would have it 
in its completeness or complexity, must conform to the science 
thereof, if they expect good results to ensue. 

E. The actual Perception is of various kinds and degrees. 
It does not require brilliant talents for its development, for many 
seers are inferior morally, organically, spiritually, and intellectual- 
ly ; yet the higher, more brilliant, and finely constituted a person 
is, the higher and nobler is the clairvoyance they will develop. 
Some subjects never get beyond the power to hunt up stolen or 
lost property ; others stop at the half-way house of telling for- 
tunes ; a number reach the scientific plane, while but a few attain 
that magnificent sweep of intellect and vision that leaps the 
world's barriers, forces the gates of death, and revels in the sub- 
lime mysteries of the universes. The purer the subject, the better 
the faculty, is the rule. Goodness, not mere knowledge, is power. 
Remember this ! 

F. No two persons' clairvoyance is precisely alike. Each one 
has a personal idiosyncrasy that invariably determines his or her 
specialty, and, whatever that specialty may chance to be, should 
be encouraged, for in that he or she will excel, and in no other. 
The attempt to force nature will be so much lost time and wasted 
effort. I say this after an experience of twenty years. I had a 
specialty for the occult, and an early friend, whom I loved tenderly, 
became unhappy by reason of an accident that, for ten years, ren- 
dered him utterly wretched and miserable. He lost all taste for 
life because of his injury and its effects, and was often tempted to 
self-murder, and an estrangement sprung up between himself and 
wife, one of the most beautiful and accomplished ladies in Amer- 
ica. A more deplorable wreck was never seen. The wife became 
morbid, and they used to visit mediums and clairvoyants in hopes 
of a cure. At that time, 1853, I had a mesmeric subject, and ex- 
amined for two French physicians in New York, — Drs. Toutain 
and Bergevin. Here I first saw and prescribed for the man, who 
afterward became my personal friend. Himself and lady were kind 
to me, and kindness won my undying love. I have had so little of 



INTERIOR VISION. 7 

it in this world, have so often been robbed, plundered, and traduced, 
by so-called friends, that when a real one appeared, I hailed it as 
the Greeks hailed the sea. We sat one hundred and eighteen times 
for my friend and his wife, searching for a means of cure, made 
many costly experiments, and finally was rewarded by a grand 
discovery. 

And so I say to all clairvoyant aspirants, Adopt a specialty, and 
pursue it steadily during your life. 

G. When a mesmeric " Circle," self-magnetizing, or (which I 
do not advise) varied experiment for clairvoyance, bids fair to be- 
come a success, and the subject sees flashes, sparks, white clouds, 
rolling balls of light vapor, or is partially lucid, the tendency of 
the mind should be carefully noted, and the future direction of the 
power or faculty be fully decided on, sought for, aimed at, and 
strictly, persistently, faithfully followed, until a splendid and never- 
to-be-doubted triumph and success crown your efforts. If you in- 
tend to examine and prescribe for disease ; " will-throwing," or 
read people ; to hunt up lost goods ; detect thieves ; make business 
examinations, — in short, any special thing ; cultivate that thing and 
no other, else you will spoil your sight, dim your light, and become 
a sort of Jack-at-all-trades, master of none. You cannot excel in 
finding lost property, reading the love-life of amorous people, and 
also describe and prescribe for sick folks. No ; the rule is, One 
thing, and that thing well. Let the rest alone. 

Again ; people are too impatient. They push a somnambule 
too fast and too far. Be careful, if you look for success. Go 
short journeys, at a slow pace, if you expect to hold out. While 
laboring for the French doctors, and others, in New York, I 
frequently not only examined fifty cases of disease a day, but 
made all sorts of explorations in as many different directions ; the 
consequence of which was a chronic lassitude, dyspepsia, angu- 
larity, and great irritability of temper, by reason of the unwise 
step and resultant nervousness. 

H. There are various hinds, as well as degrees, of clairvoy- 
ance : Natural, Intellectual, Medical, Ethereal and Divine, So- 
cial, Practical, and purely Mental. Or a clear-seeing of material 
forms ; lucidity of mind, generally ; lucidity of special cerebral 
organs ; lucidity upon certain points, — as Medicine, Prevoyance, 
Religion, Philosophy, Science, Logic, Art, Love, etc. There are 



8 INTERIOR VISION. 

many pretenders to all these, nine in ten of whom are rank im- 
postors. 

There is a clairvoyance of Introspection, Inspection, and Pro- 
jection, and these have their appropriate fields in the past, 
present, and the future; all of which are easily developed and 
perfected. 

There is the common somnambulic or mesmerically induced lu- 
cidity. It also comes through the coma or trance, however pro- 
duced ; and yet it is by no means necessary that the patient be 
fully entranced in order to produce the distinct lucidity. I know 
capital seers who never were entranced ; who never lost their con- 
sciousness for a moment. But such cases are far from being com- 
mon or usual. This first kind of vision exhausts itself on material 
objects alone, — a mere perception of things without penetrating 
power. The next stage it reaches is that of mind-reading. In 
1853, 4, 5, the writer hereof had this power to a remarkable 
degree ; used to play cards, chess, and read books, blindfold ; and 
this power caused him to be invited to visit Paris, where he exhib- 
ited it to the astonishment of the savans, and his own glorification. 
Practically, the thing is useless. 

There is a perception, one grade higher than this last, which 
enables the subject to come en rapport with the surface and es- 
sence of things, as a tree, man, woman, herbs, etc. ; and it grows 
till the seer beholds and explains somewhat of the penetralia of 
things ; and it culminates in the condition wherein the mind, leap- 
ing all the barriers of the outer senses and world, sees and knows 
things altogether beyond their ranges, and approaches the awful 
realms of Positive Spirit. 

Special cerebral organs become lucid, soon succeeded by an 
entire illumination of the brain. This is a grand, a sublime, a 
holy degree ; for the subject sees, senses, feels, knows, by a royal 
power ; is en rapport with a thousand knowledges. A step further, 
a step inward, and the subject is in harmony with both the upper 
and lower universes. He or she thenceforth is a Power in the 
World. All clairvoyants may not claim genius, but all true 
genius is clairvoyant. Mere talents are dry leaves, tossed up and 
down by gusts of passion, and scattered and swept away ; but 
Genius lies on the bosom of Memory, and Gratitude at hei 
feet. 



INTERIOR VISION. \) 

I. Very few persons will fail who strictly conform to the gener- 
al rules here laid down, and fewer still who follow the special 
plans determined upon. As a rule, I find it safe to declare, that 
in every one hundred cases seventy-five can become partly lucid ; 
sixty-three can become sensitives ; forty-five can reach the second, 
thirty-two the third, fourteen the fourth, five the fifth, and two the 
highest degree of clairvoyance their peculiar organization is capa- 
ble of attaining. Of one hundred men, fifty-six can become 
seers ; of two hundred women, one hundred and eighty can become 
so. 

Magnetic Clairvoyance is that induced by holding the head 
close to the open horns of a large and powerful horse-shoe magnet. 
It may be suspended from the ceiling and held to the head lying 
down, so that when let go it will spring away, or come in contact 
with its armature (a nail will do) so as to close the circuit. A 
quartz crystal is nearly as good for this purpose as a horse-shoe 
magnet ; but I prefer a bar magnet to either. 

Mesmeric Circles differ from all others, in that to be proper, 
all who are in one should be insulated ; the chairs, and tables, and 
footstools should rest on glass knobs made on purpose. In these 
circles, the chances are ten to one that some will go off into the 
mesmeric coma on the first trial. The circle must wish, will, 
desire, and favorable results are almost sure to follow. Have pa- 
tience, if they do not. 

Note. — All clairvoyants should, to be useful, successful, and 
enduring, cultivate the habit of deep breathing ; for all brain power 
depends upon lung power, nor can continued ability exist if this 
be neglected. All clairvoyants should feed on the best things 
attainable. Again, all clairvoyants must use great caution in 
matters of sex. Abstinence is good ; totally so, is better, for an 
error in that direction is fatal to clear vision, or its perpetuity 
when possessed. 

I am told by a friend of mine, in Paris, the best male seer in 
France, that carelessness in this respect cost him the loss of his 
vision for a period of seven months. If the party desires to de- 
velop sensitiveness only, with a view of becoming a psychometrist, 
this caution does not apply with such force. If a person was to 
ask me, is it best to try to be a clairvoyant or a good psychometrist, 
I should unhesitatingly say the latter, by all means, for it is more 



10 



INTERIOR VISION. 



easily attained, and, to say the least, is quite as useful, if money- 
making and tests are the objects sought to be gained. 

In all mesmeric experiments, individual or collective, very few- 
become, at first trial, true hypnotic subjects ; and some can never 
be, owing to peculiarities of organization. The matter can be 
tested in a variety of ways, — as, for instance, the usual " passes " 
may be reversed. Or the doubtful subject may look steadily at a 
speck on the wall for six minutes. If drowsy at the end of that 
time, and the eyeballs have a tendency to roll up, the person is a 
subject, and all that is required is patience. Or breathe rapidly, 
forcibly, for ninety seconds. If it makes you dizzy, you are a 
subject, and can enter the somnambulic state in any one of a doz- 
en ways. This same operation, often repeated, is almost certain 
to produce coma ; and if done while lying down, in connection 
with the horse-shoe magnet operation, will prove successful in en- 
abling the person to see without eyes. In all cases the room 
should be quite dark. (N.B. — All magnetic, odyllic, and mes- 
meric processes are twenty times oftener productive of grand 
results if conducted in a dark chamber, than in one lighted artifi- 
cially, or by the sun. Next to a thoroughly dark room, moonlight 
is best, and starlight better still.) If, at the end of a few min- 
utes, sparks, flashes, streaks of quick and lingering light are seen, 
or phosphor clouds float before the face, then one of two things is 
immediately probable. First, that the party by continuance and 
repetition can be clairvoyant ; or, second, if not too scary, these 
clouds and sparks may resolve themselves into beatified forms of 
friends long gone, but unlost. 

Forty-eight out of fifty mesmeric experiments fail because the 
operator wastes, not saves, diffuses, instead of focalizes, the mes- 
meric force that streams from the eye and fingers. Rules. — Sub- 
ject and operator must be of opposite sex, temperament, complex- 
ion, size, stature, hair, eyes, build, and so on throughout, in order 
to bring about the best results, without reference to all the talk 
about positive and negative, which is mostly nonsense ; for I 
have known a sweet miss only six years old, to thoroughly and 
effectively mesmerize her great burly uncle, — a man capable of 
knocking a bull down with one stroke of his ponderous fist, and 
who was one of the roughest sea-tyrants that ever trod a quarter 
deck, and yet the little lady rendered him not only helpless, but 



INTERIOR VISION. 



11 



clairvoyant, by repeatedly manipulating his head while he held her 
on his lap in his daily calls. She had witnessed a few experi- 
ments, believed she could do the same, tried it on four times, and 
accomplished it in great glee on the fifth attempt. But the great- 
est miracle of all was, that the captain's nature became entirely 
changed, and to-day a better or a gentler man does not sail out 
of New York harbor ! Concentrate your attention on a single 
point in the subject's head ; keep it there. Do not let your 
thoughts wander. Gaze steadily at it, and it alone, gently waving 
your head and hands over it from right to left, left to right. Re- 
peat the process at the same time, daily, for one hour, till the 
sleep is thoroughly induced. When it is, and you are perfectly 
satisfied of the fact, you will be strongly tempted to ask questions. 
Don't you do it I Resist it. Deepen the slumber in seven sittings 
after perfect insensibility ensues ! The eighth time you may ask a 
few questions, and but a few. Lead the subject slowly, tenderly, 
holily, gently along, step by step, one subject at a time, and that 
subject thoroughly, — not forgetting what I have said about " spe- 
cialties." 

J. Persons ambitious to become clairvoyant must not forget 
that a full habit, amorous pleasures, high living, and mental ex- 
citement, all are disqualifications. The entire diet must be 
changed ; the linen often ; the skin, especially the head and hair, 
must be kept scrupulously clean ; and, to insure speedy success, 
the food should be very light ; fruit, and tea, coffee, and milk 
may be freely used ; but no chocolate, fat, oysters, pastry, and 
but very little sugar. Nor should the person fail to think, wish, 
and will the end aimed at continually. Soft and plaintive music 
is a capital adjunct. 

K. The experiments should always be made at first with but 
few spectators, in a darkened room ; and perfect trust should 
exist between operator and subject. And here let me state that 
no woman should allow herself to be mesmerized by a man whose 
principles she cannot fully trust to, for any man can seduce any 
woman whom he sits by, in magnetic rapport. 

L. For some purposes I prefer the Oriental methods of clair- 
voyance to the full magnetism of European and American prac- 
tice. These are : first, the mesmerist places a few drops of ink 
in a proper vessel; gazes therein himself (magnetizing it), and 



12 



INTERIOR VISION. 



bids the subject gaze also. Presently, the subject will behold a 
vision in it, and will see pictures of whatever is desired. 

I now give the special method of thorough magnetization. 
First : Let the room be partly darkened. Let there be a mirror 
in the north end ; let the subject's back be toward that mirror, but 
take care that he or she sits so that the reflected ray of light 
(magnetism) from the operator's eye will strike the back of his or 
her head, the subject receiving the reflected ray, — or, operator, 
subject, and mirror, forming a triangle, which any school-boy can 
arrange in a moment. Now the subject sits in a chair fully insu- 
lated, the feet being on an insulated stool, and no part of the 
dress or chair touching the floor. The operator also stands or 
sits on an insulated stool, and, if he is weak in nervous force, 
should be fully charged with electricity, or from a battery. If 
spectators are present, seat them silently in the south, east, and 
west, but not a soul in the north. No silk, not even a cravat, 
must be allowed in the room. If a piano is there, let some soft 
and tender chord be played ; but take care not to play more than 
that one on that evening. Previous to the experiment, two mag- 
nets have been suspended, one north pole up, the other down, so 
as to embrace the subject's head without much pressure ; the poles 
must antagonize, and a current will be sent entirely through the 
head. Now be careful. You have already prepared a magnet, or 
magnetic bar, and when the subject is seated, and the magnets ar- 
ranged, the operator looks steadily at that point of the looking- 
glass, whence the reflected ray will glance off and strike the back 
of the subject's head, just between the fork of the northern mag- 
net, and while doing so he points the bar magnet directly toward 
the open neck of the subject. In a few minutes there ought to be 
perfect magnetic slumber, and frequently the most surprising 
clairvoyance exhibited. It is still better if all the spectators 
grasp a cord on which a copper and iron wire has been bound, the 
ends being fastened to a chair, so that they point directly to the 
subject's body. If these directions be faithfully observed, success 
will follow nine times in every ten experiments. 

I may also observe that a slight alteration will render this cir- 
cle unequalled for different purposes. In such cases let all sit 
round a table itself, the chairs and stools being wholly insulated. 
If the room be darkened, you may and probably will have curious 



INTERIOR VISION. 13 

mental phenomena. But I advise the chord to be played all the 
time till results sought for are obtained. Again, let a person sit 
facing the south, insulated, with the magnets in contact as before, 
— the person being alone, — and the results desired are almost cer- 
tain to follow. But let me here say that no one in or out of a cir- 
cle can reach good and speedy results unless perfectly and abso- 
lutely clean. The bath is the very best of preparations for these 
experiments, and cannot be neglected with impunity. I have 
known many successes and some failures in conducting all of the 
above experiments both in this country, England, and France, and 
I give it as my deliberate opinion that no one need fail in them, 
and will not, unless their own folly and impatience ruin all. 

All phantasma are based upon the eternal fact, that whatever 
exists is something ; that thoughts are things, that spirit is real 
substance, that all things photograph themselves upon other sur- 
faces ; that sensitives can see and contact these shadows, lights, 
impressions, and images, — as abundantly demonstrated by Baron 
Von Eeichenbach in his researches into the arcana of chemism, 
light, force and magnetism ; also by thousands of others in all 
lands, and especially wherein it is said disbodied people pro- 
ject an image of themselves upon paper, the artist sketching the 
outline with a pencil, thus producing pictures of the dead, recog- 
nizable by all who ever saw them when walking in flesh and blood. 
Now, the fact that dead people can and do project images of them- 
selves upon the retinas of sensitives, upon the aura that surrounds 
certain people, upon similar emanations from houses (haunted !), 
so plainly that hundreds can see them clear as noonday, is so firm- 
ly established that few are so hardy as to deny what is thus, upon 
the testimony of millions, in all ages, absolutely and unequivocally 
demonstrated. 

It is equally well established, however fools may sneer, that for 
ages men of the loftiest mental power have used various agents as 
a means of vision, either to bring themselves in contact with the 
supernal realms of the ether, or to afford a sensitive surface 
upon which the attendant dead could, can, and do, temporally 
photograph whatever they choose to, or conditions permit. 

During my travels through Africa, Egypt, Turkey, Arabia, 
Syria, and my intercourse with the Voudeaux of New Orleans and 
Long Island, I became thoroughly convinced of the existence of 



14 



INTERIOR VISION. 



two kinds of magic : one good and beneficent, ruled and gov- 
erned by the Adonim ; the other foul, malevolent, revengeful, lust- 
ful, and malignant. They antagonize each other. The one revels 
in the saturnalia of the passions ; the other, the true Eosicrucian, 
moves in the light-producing Shadow of the Over Soul. In the 
one, the adept is surrounded by an innumerable host of viewless 
powers, who lead him on to great ends and power, but finally sap 
out his life, and utterly ruin and destroy him or her. And this ac- 
counts for much of ill seen and experienced by modern sensitives. 
The other leads its votaries through the glimmer toward the 
light, and unfolds at length that Final and Crowning Clairvoy- 
ance, which consists in a clear perception of relations, causes, 
connecting links, effects, and uses, by far the noblest and highest 
attainable while embodied, and this it is that I aim to enable oth- 
ers to reach. But take notice : the true clairvoyant in 

• THIS SUBLIME DEGREE MOVES AND ACTS ABOVE AND BEYOND THE 
TEMPESTUOUS REALM OP THE PASSIONS DEFIES THEIR UTMOST 

power. Passion dims the soul's best vision. To reach this 
lofty eminence, the subject's physical system ought to be purified 
and proper preparation be made. Food, raiment, habits, thoughts, 
impulses, all must be modified, for it is idle for any one to expect 
to reach the greatest apex of possible mental power, unless the 
right kind of effort be first made. It is God's highest gift to indi- 
vidual man, and cannot be had without a struggle. Since the 
first edition of this little hand-book (originally printed for sixty sub- 
scribers, afterward for five hundred more) was printed, several imi- 
tations of it have been born into the world of letters, and every one 
that I have seen, written by persons who have never known what 
clairvoyance really is ; for it is a demonstrable fact that but a very 
small percentage are really lucid of all the vast throng that claim 
this divine and superlatively holy power. 

The old-time mesmeric processes — not the mere so-called " psy- 
chologizing" — Phoebus, what a word! — nor the "biological" 
manipulations, once in such high repute wherever their "profes- 
sors " — heaven save the mark ! — could procure a hall and a gul- 
lible flock of witnesses ; but the good old-fashioned mesmeric in- 
duction, seems, in these latter singular times, to have come to an 
almost total stop and failure, for not one in every hundred exper- 
iments is a decided success according to the ancient standard of 



INTERIOR VISION. 15 

twenty years ; ago and the universal complaint and testimony are 
that as soon as a subject is once fairly inducted into the Irypnotic 
condition, he or she immediately passes from under the mesmerist's 
control, and either announces a determination to "go it alone," or 
become the " subject " of some unknown power, at once enter- 
ing the domain of mediumship, and thenceforth becoming wholly 
useless in a -mesmeric point of view. Now, I think there is no 
real necessity for such a state of things, nor do I believe it would 
happen were it not that the operator is deficient in the prime ele- 
ments of resolution and will, — without both of which, the matter 
had better not be undertaken at all. Another reason for these fre- 
quent failures to produce magnetic states and the concurrent pow- 
ers of lucidity results from the fact that men who mesmerize fe- 
males become too susceptible to the powers and influences of lust, 
and during the operation of magnetizing are too full of lascivious 
imaginings and hopes to pay strict regard to the matter in hand, 
and hence the subject spurns the control and acts independently, 
or the invisible forces that hover about incontinently clap a stop- 
per over all, and forthwith veto and annul the whole affair ; for 
which kindly providence they merit and receive my most hearty 
thanks, and those of all other well-wishers of his kind, here or 
over there. 

Not all invisible onlookers, however, are to be counted in along 
with seraphs and angels, nor do they always take a subject away 
from the mesmerist for that subject's good ; but it may happen 
that obsessing forces of the " Voodoo" grades step in to serve 
their own peculiar ends. People may laugh as much as they 
please at the idea of wicked, mean, obsessing, tantalizing, tempt- 
ing beings, or at the old notions of the alchemists and others of 
that ilk ; but my researches and experience tell a far different 
story. When it is asserted that there is no inner world of mystic 
forces under the sun ; — that there are no mysterious means whereby 
ends both good and ill can be wrought at any distance ; that the 
so called "spells," "charms" and "projects" are mere notions, 
having no firmer foundation than superstition or empty air alone, — 
then I flatly deny all such assertions, and affirm the conclusions ar- 
rived at are so reached by persons wholly ignorant of the invis- 
ible world about us, and of the inner powers of the human mind. 
Although I am not called upon here to explain the rationale 



16 INTERIOR VISION. 

involved in this special department at full length, yet elsewhere I 
have clearly indicated the direction in which they are to be found. 
As well tell me that the sun don't rise, as that there are no means 
whereby two dissevered persons cannot be brought in contact, or 
that methods do not exist by means of which one person can as- 
suredly so work upon another as to gain desired ends (of course 
said ends ought always to be good, but even if they be evil, the self- 
same principle and power exists, and can be easily brought into 
active play and power), no matter whether said ends be those of 
love, affection, jealousy, revenge, or love of gain, and lust of 
power. I have seen too much of that sort of thing in Asia, Af- 
rica, France, California, England, Long Island, and New Orleans, 
to doubt the evidences of my senses, and the experience of years 
of attentive study of this branch of the great magnetic law, to 
doubt it. Indeed, so thoroughly convinced was I of the truth, that 
I spent years in travel and association with experts in order to be- 
come master of the processes and the rather unpleasant secrets of 
the lower (as well as of the higher) kind. In New Orleans noth- 
ing is more common than for both men and women to employ the 
voudeaux to effect contact with loved or desired ones. I have 
never known a failure, albeit some experiments of acquaintances 
of mine were rather expensive. A man loves a woman and can- 
not reach her, or vice versa; then comes in the vond. I have a 
personal story to tell on this head, with living witnesses in Bos- 
ton, that would convince the most sceptical person living. More 
than that : in this matter of sympathetic art I know that a pair of 
twin rings, containing each others' hair, one worn by the loved, 
the other by the lover, will blend the two in magnetic rapport to 
an astonishing degree. The whole thing is magnetic (another 
word for magic) ; and so it is also of the " love-powder" business, 
for, although most of the charlatans who pretend to deal in them 
are conscienceless swindlers, yet it is possible to prepare and 
charge certain materials so that they will retain the nerve aura of 
one person, and impart it to another, kindling up magnetic love 
between them, just as a little yeast will leaven a whole barrel of 



• ■ 



flour. Again, it will not do to tell me that one person cannot 
throw a spell upon another, and affect them favorably, or the re- 
verse, at any distance ! Hundreds are living witnesses to-day of 
my public exposure and defiance of the whole tribe of Voudeaux 



INTEEIOR VISION. 17 

in New Orleans, at the School of Liberty, in 1864-5, and it was 
from one of the Voudeaux queens (Alice H n) , — and Mad- 
ame D s, a victim, that I gained much of my knowledge in 

these occult points of black magic. I have known it to be prac- 
tised for purposes of lust, passion, love, revenge, and pecuniary 
speculation, and always with a strange and marvellous success. 
Again, we are told that powers of evil guard hidden treasures, and 
successfully obfuscate and confuse the would-be finders. I believe 
it ; and also believe that said obfuscation can easily be overcome 
by a timely resort to powers of a higher grade. People are wont 
to laugh at and deride all this, as superstitious folly and blind 
credulity, in spite of the fact that the loftiest minds earth ever 
held, from Hermes Trismegistus, and the Alchemists, down the 
ages, to the last elected members of the Sarbonne, have believed, 
do believe it, and I glory in being found in such august company, 
including Alexander of Russia, and Napoleon III. 

In corroboration of what I have written, I beg leave to intro- 
duce, without comment, the following article concerning " Voudoo- 
ism, — African Fetich Worship among the Memphis Negroes," 
from the " Memphis Appeal " : — 

"The word Hoodoo, or Voudoo, is one of the names used in the 
different African dialects for the practice of the mysteries of the 
Obi (an African word signifying a species of sorcery and witch- 
craft common among the worshippers of the fetich). In the West 
Indies the word c Obi ' is universally used to designate the priests 
or practisers of this art, who are called ' Obi ' men and ' Obi ' 
women. In the southern portion of the United States, — Louisi- 
ana, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Georgia, — where 
the same rites are extensively practised among the negroes, and 
where, under the humanizing and Christianizing influence of the 
blessed state of freedom and idleness in which they now exist, and 
are encouraged by the Freedmen's Bureau, the religion is rapidly 
spreading. It goes under the name of Voudooism or Hooclooism. 

" The practisers of the art, who are always native Africans, are 
called hoodoo men or women, and are held in great dread by the 
negroes, who apply to them for the cure of diseases, to obtain 
revenge for injuries, and to discover and punish their enemies. 
The mode of operations is to prepare a fetich, which being placed 
near or in the dwelling of the person to be worked upon (under the 



18 



INTERIOR VISION. 



doorstep, or in any snug portion of the furniture) is supposed to 
produce the most dire and terrible effects upon the victim, both 
physically and mentally. Among the materials used for the fetich 
are feathers of various colors, blood, dogs' and cats' teeth, clay 
from graves, egg-shells, beads, and broken bits of glass. The clay 
is made into a ball with hair and rags, bound with twine, with 
feathers, human, alligators', or dogs' teeth, so arranged as to make 
the whole bear a fancied resemblance to an animal of some sort. 

"The person to be hoodooed is generally made aware that the 
hoodoo is ' set ' for him, and the terror created in his mind by this 
knowledge is generally sufficient to cause him to fall sick, and it 
is a curious fact, almost always to die in a species of decline. The 
intimate knowledge of the hoodoos of the insidious vegetable poi- 
sons that abound in the swamps of the South, enables them to use 
these with great effect in most instances. 

" With the above as introductory, our readers will better under- 
stand the following, which we vouch for as strictly true in every 
particular. Names and exact locality (although we will say that 
it occurred within a few miles of this city) are withheld at the re- 
quest of the lady, whom we will call Mrs. A. : — 

" Some months since the only child, a little daughter of Mrs. A., 
who had been left a widow by the war, was taken ill with what was 
then thought a slow malarious fever. The family physician was 
called in and prescribed for her, but in spite of his attentions she 
grew gradually worse, and seemed to be slowly but surely sinking 
and wasting away. Everything that medical skill could think of 
was done, but in vain. 

" One evening, while Mrs. A. was watching by the bedside of 
the little sufferer, an old negro woman, who had been many years 
in the family, expressed her belief that the child had been ' hoo- 
dooed.' Mrs. A. was a Creole of Louisiana, and, having been from 
her earliest infancy among the negroes, was familiar with, and had 
imbibed not a few of their peculiar superstitions. In despair of 
deriving any benefit from the doctors, and completely baffled and 
worn out with the peculiar lingering nature of her child's illness, 
the suggestion of the woman made a great impression on her mind. 

" In the neighborhood were two negroes who bore the reputa- 
tion of being hoodoo men. They were both Congoes, and were 
a portion of the cargo of slaves that had run into Mobile Bay in 



INTERIOR VISION. 19 

1860 or 1861. As usual with their more civilized professional 
brethren, these two hoodoos were deadly enemies, and worked 
against each other in every possible way. Each had his own par- 
ticular crowd of adherents, who believed him to be able to make 
the more powerful grigats. 

" One of these hoodoos lived on or near Mrs. A/s place, and, 
although she was ashamed of the superstition which led her to do 
so, she sent for him immediately to come over to see her child. 
The messenger returned, and said that Finney (that was the sor- 
cerer's name) would come, but that Mrs. A. must first send him a 
chicken cock, three conch shells, and a piece of money with a hole 
in it. 

" She complied with his demands, and he shortly afterward 
appeared with the cock under his arm, fancifully decorated with 
strips of yellow, red, and blue flannel, and the three conches 
trigged up pretty much in the same manner. Placing the conches 
on the floor in the shape of a triangle, he laid the cock down in the 
centre of it on its side. He then drew his hand across it in the 
same direction three or four times. On leaving it the cock lay 
quiet and did not attempt to move, although it was loose and ap- . 
parently could have done so had it wished. 

" After these preliminaries, he examined the child from head to 
foot, and, after doing so, broke out into a loud laugh, muttering 
words to himself in an African dialect. Turning to Mrs. A., who 
was all anxiety, he told her that the child was hoodooed, that he 
had found the marks of the hoodoo, and that it was being done 
by his rival (who lived some miles off, although considered in the 
same neighborhood) , and that he (Finney) intended to show him 
that he could not come into his district hoodooing without his per- 
mission. 

" He then called the servants and every one about the place up, 
and ordered them to appear one by one before him. So great was 
the respect and terror with which they regarded him, that, although 
many of them obviously did so with reluctance, not one failed to 
obey the summons. He regarded each one closely and minutely, 
and asked if he or she had seen either a strange rooster, dog, or 
cat around the house in the past few days ; to which questions they 
made various answers. The chambermaid, who attended on the 
room in which the child lay, was one of those who were particularly 



20 



INTERIOR VISION. 



reluctant to appear before him or to answer his questions. He re- 
marked this, and grinning so as to show his sharply filed teeth 
nearly from ear to ear, he said, ' Ha, gal, better me find you out 
than the buckra ! ' 

" This was late at night, and, after making his i reconnoisance,' 
he picked up his conches and the cock, and prepared to go, telling 
Mrs. A. to move the little sufferer into another room and bed. 
Promising that he would be back early in the morning, he left the 
house. At an early hour next morning he returned with a large 
bundle of herbs, which, with peculiar incantations, he made into a 
bath, into which he placed the child, and from that hour it began 
to recover rapidly. 

" He, however, did not stop here. He determined to find out 
the hoodoo, and how it had been used ; so, after asking permis- 
sion, he ripped open the pillows, and the bed in which the child 
had lain, and therein he found and brought forth a lot of fetiches 
made of feathers bound together in the most fantastic forms, 
which he gave to Mrs. A., telling her to burn them in the fire, and 
to watch the chambermaid carefully, saying that as they had 
burned and shrivelled up, so she would shrivel up. The girl, who 
had displayed from the first the most intense uneasiness, was 
listening at the keyhole of an adjoining room, and heard these 
injunctions. With a scream she rushed into the room, and, drop- 
ping on her knees at Mrs. A.'s feet, implored her not to burn the 
fetiches, promising, if she would not, to make a clean confession 
of her guilt. 

"Mrs. A., by this time deeply impressed with the strangeness 
and mystery of the affair, was prevailed upon by the entreaties of 
the girl, and kept the 'fetiches' intact, and the chambermaid 
confessed that she had been prevailed upon by the other < hoo- 
doo man' to place these fetiches in the bed of the child. She 
protested she did not know for what reason, and that afterward 
she wished to take them out, but did not dare to do so for fear of 
him. 

" As soon as the family physician came in, Mrs. A., completely 
bewildered, told him the whole affair, showing him the fetiches, 
and making the girl repeat her story to him. He, being a practi- 
cal man, and having withal considerable knowledge of chemistry, 
took the bunches of feathers home with him, and on making a 



INTERIOR VISION. 21 

chemical examination of them, he found them imbued with a very 
deadly poison. 

"Meanwhile, he told the affair to two or three neighbors, and 
getting out a warrant for the arrest of the malignant hoodoo man, 
they went to the hut to arrest him. The bird had flown, however, 
and could nowhere be found. Some of the negroes had, no doubt, 
carried word to him, and he had thought it best to clear out from 
that neighborhood. The little patient, relieved from inhaling the 
poison in her pillow and bed, soon got well, and Mrs. A. has now 
in her possession the fetiches which came so near making her a 
childless widow. 

"It may not be generally known to the public, but it is never- 
theless a fact, that these barbarous African superstitions and 
practices prevail, and are increasing among the * freedmen/ not 
only of Memphis and Tennessee, but of all the Southern States. 
It is the clearest proof of the inevitable tendency of the negro to 
relapse into barbarism when left to control himself." 

So much for Voudooism. I believe this story to be true, for I 
have myself been a victim to the thing, but the " doctor " who 
analyzed the stuff, and found " poison," is both a cheat and a sham 
to hide his utter ignorance. There was no poison about it. The 
whole thing is purely magnetic, as I can demonstrate at will, for I 
know this thing from end to end, and speak by the card. 

But I have already exceeded the limits' assigned to this part of 
my subject, and shall end it with a few words of advice to those 
who are mesmerized, who mesmerize others, and to that large 
class of persons who, unable to be put into the magnetic state 
themselves, or induce the sleep in others, yet have a constitutional 
tendency towards the occult, — a peculiar idiosyncrasy which 
admirably adapts them to the investigation of the inner mysteries 
of existence, — men and women, who have strange prophetic im- 
pulses, weird and arabesque dreams — people who feel strange 
mental depression without any apparent cause ; persons who are 
strangely warned of impending death or danger, and before whose 
eyes fiery sparks glitter a moment and then vanish into the deep 
blank void again, — such persons make splendid seers through the 
magic crystals of Artefius and Dee, the Japanese crystal globes, 
and better still, the splendid magnetic mirrors of Trintje, and the 



22 



INTEEIOR VISION. 



finer ones imported into this country by the Armenian seer, Cuilna 
Vilmara, — many of which I have used myself, and selected for 
others. I think I never so deeply regretted the loss of any material 
object so much as I did the accidental breaking of a splendid first- 
class Trinue glass, which cost me twenty-five dollars, but which I 
would not have parted with for ten times that sum ; for not only 
could I see strange scenes upon its charmed magnetic surface, but 
of the hundreds who have gazed into it, I never knew of but five 
who could not see curious clouds moving at will, and phantoramas 
strangely beautiful and interesting, clear as noonday, and brilliant 
as polarized light ! To all these classes of persons I say : Your 
power depends upon your health, cleanliness, freedom from doubt, 
irritability, and above all, impatience. You must, if you would 
succeed in penetrating the dark pall which hangs between this 
world and the under and over realms of light, yet mystery, culti- 
vate firmness of purpose, steadiness of will, persistency in search 
of the desired end, volume of lung power and clearness of mind. 
Mystery never opens her dark doors to the impatient seeker, has 
been the result of all my experience, and that of every true Rosi- 
crucian that ever lived, from Thoth-Mor, King of Egypt and high 
priest thousands of years before the birth of the present materialistic 
phase of civilization, down to Freeman B.Dowd, the selected grand 
master of the magnificent order. From Thoth in his palaces, 
three miles square, on the banks of ancient Nile, to Dowd in 
Davenport, Iowa, in the shores of mightier Mississippi, each and 
both, and all the links between, will tell the same story, and 
recount the same experience, that mystery refuses knowledge to 
the impatient soul ! 

The persons who seeks for interior light and perceptive power 
cannot obtain it without a trial which tests the perseverance. They 
must endeavor to secure equable nervous, physical, and mental 
health ; for the " clairvoyance," falsely so called, which results 
from sickness and morbid states of mind and body, is at best both 
unsafe and unreliable ; but a psycho-vision, such as can without 
much difficulty be reached through processes herein laid down, and 
especially by means of a good glass such as Vilmara's, which, in 
my opinion, maugre all that table-rapping, planchetting, and other 
objectors may urge, is incomparably a better, more rapid, and 



INTERIOR VISION. 23 

infinitely more satisfactory means than any other known on earth 
to-day, and, if necessary, I could give the names of scores of adepts 
in their almost daily use. Some may ask the question : " Spirit- 
ualism is now an accredited fact ; why not, then, depend upon the 
revelations obtainable from that source, for answers to all questions 
concerning the interior senses and the invisible worlds about us ? 
What advantage can a person have by pursuing the search in his 
or her own person? " To which I answer, 

First. Not ten per cent, of what passes for spiritual intercourse 
has a higher origin than the " medium's " mind. 

Second. What one sees, feels, hears, is positive proof to him or 
her. All spiritual communications come second-handed, but the 
clairvoyant sees directly and reaches knowledge by the first inten- 
tion. 

Third. If a person is lucid (clairvoyant), he or she has a secret 
personal positive power, and need not consult any other authority 
whatever. 

Fourth. " Mediumship " is automacy ; a medium is a machine 
played on and worked by others, when it really exists ; but the 
clairvoyant sees, knows, understands, learns, and grows in per- 
sonal magnetic and mental power day by day ; and while embodied 
makes the very best possible preparations for the certain and abso- 
lute life beyond the grave, which awaits us all when this " fever 
called living is over at last." 

Fifth. Clairvoyance necessarily subtilizes and refines the mind, 
body, tastes, passions, and tendencies of every one who possesses 
and practises it. 

Virtue is not a myth ; Death is ; but by clairvoyance the bars 
of Death are beaten down, and it opens the gates of Glory, to 
show all doubting souls the light and life beyond. And why die 
till one's work is done ? Is yours ? If not, this divine thing will 
enable you to more effectually accomplish it. 

Possession ordereth use. True clairvoyants do not count them- 
selves as altogether of this world, for they are in connection with, 
and do the work below of the ethereal peoples of the starry skies. 
By means of this royal road, the true seer or seeress is enabled to 
read the varied scrolls of human life ; frequently to explain the 
real significance of dreams and visions ; examine and prescribe 
for those who are sick or ailing in body, soul, mind, heart, afiec- 



24 



INTERIOR VISION. 



tions, hope, ambition, love, aspiration, speculation, losses, gains, 
fears and troubles of every character, healing bodies, minds, souls ; 
scanning by real positive mental vision, not merely the secrets of 
a man's or woman's lives and loves, and keeping them as wisdom 
seeds, to grow into good fruitage presently, — but also reaching 
the perfect comprehension of the sublime fact that organization 
determines destinies, — which of course begets charity to the 
- neighbor and love to all mankind ; hence it is possible to fore- 
tell events that must inevitably come to pass, either in the gen- 
eral or special plane of an individual's life and experience. There 
are ever two roads and three choices before every intelligent hu- 
man being, and clairvoyance alone is competent to decide which 
is best, for only this magnificent science and power can enable us 
to reach the penetralium. As a Roscicrucian, I know that men 
ever fail and die mainly through feebleness of Will. Clairvoy- 
ance will teach the adept how to strengthen it. The Will is one 
of the prime human powers, and it alone has enabled Man to 
achieve the splendid triumphs that mark all the ages. If it sleep, 
or be weak, fitful, or lethargic, the man amounts to a mere cipher. 
If it be strong and normal, there is no obstacle can successfully 
impede its sway. We know that the sick are healed by its 
strength ; that homes are made happy by its power ; that love it- 
self comes to man through its divine agency ; that woman can 
realize her hopes, in many directions, through its resistless force ; 
that God is Will, and whoso hath it fullest and finest, most re- 
sembleth him ! Steady willing will bring lucidity of vision and of 
soul! By it, also, those who love or would, love may find. Es- 
pecially is this true of that large class who seek the occult, and 
strongly desire to reach the cryptic light beneath the floors of the 
waking world, — I mean the sons and daughters of Sorrow, An- 
guish, and the Light ; the loving, unloved ones of the earth ; 
the lonely pilgrims over desert sands ; the heart-reft mariners 
now sailing and surging over the stormy waters of the bitter sea 
of Circumstance, — for these are the God-sent, and they travel 
ever the roughest paths. To all such, Will, and especially 
Clairvoyance, is a boon, a true friend, saying, " Come unto me, all 
ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will point the road to 
rest ! " — clairvoyance I mean — not automacy In any shape. 
What a man or woman eats, drinks, is clothed with, inhales, or 



INTERIOR VISION. 25 

is surrounded by, has a direct effect upon the entire being. V 'iat 
shall be partaken of or avoided, in order to purify the person, and 
create the best possible personal conditions ? What chemist can 
answer that question ? Who among them all can tell the precise 
magnetic, electric, or dynamic state of a man at any given mo- 
ment of his life ? Not one. But the clear seer can do all that and 
more ! What shall be taken or avoided in order to strengthen 
the will? the love nature? the flagging appetites and natural pas- 
sions? the entire nature? principle? courage? fortitude? faith? 
persistence ? Mental lucidity alone can reply. Nothing is more 
certain than that in certain things you have undertaken, disastrous 
failure has been the result. And why ? You cannot tell, but lu- 
cidity will enable you to find out, and render you master or mis- 
tress of the situation. There are three things only that we strive 
for in this life, as times go, and these are Love, Money, and Po- 
sition (Power), but we often fail in reaching all or either, only 
because we are ignorant of the true road to them, as determined 
by our respective organizations. What but seership can remedy 
all this? 

Again : It may happen with the best of us that we have forfeited 
love or lost it. That we are stranded midway on the rocks of dis- 
trust, jealousy, incompatibility. 

Does passion lie smouldering? Do you love, and find that love 
unreturned? Are you forced to " eat your own heart," and lan- 
guish all your days and nights in hopeless gloom, as I have in 
years gone by ? Have meddlers destroyed your peace, broken up 
the dearest and tenderest ties, wrecked you on the hard rocks of 
life's roughest paths, deserted you, and left you all alone in the 
terrible trial hour? Have you been wrecked on life's journey, and 
seek dry and solid footing? Do you seek communion with the 
dead, and to know the higher magic of Power? Here is Rhodes, 
and here leap ! Hope ! Persistence ! Is it worth while to know 
what your faults of character are, and how the defect may be rem- 
edied ? to know the reasons why you fail in many of your under- 
takings? and what will lead you on to success? If man or woman 
hath lost hope, and love and passion are smouldering wrecks, is it 
worth while to know how they may be resurrected from their pre- 
mature graves ? All this true clairvoyance will instruct you how 
to accomplish. 



26 INTERIOR VISION. 

" Sad, sad, are they who know not love, 
But, far from Passion's tears and smiles, 
Drift down a moonless sea, and pass 
The silvery coasts of fairy isles. 

" But sadder they, whose longing lips 
Kiss empty air, and never touch 
The dear warm mouth of those they love, — 
Waiting, wasting, suffering much. 

" But, clear as amber, sweet as musk, 
Is life to those whose loves unite! 
They bask in Allah's smiles by day, 
And nestle in his heart by night." 

Thus sang Fatima ; thus singeth every true soul. Clairvoyance 
should be cultivated by everybody, and then there would be fewer 
marriage mistakes. 

No curtain hides from view the spheres elysian, 
Save these poor shells of half-transparent dust; 

And all that blinds the spiritual vision 
Is pride, and hate, and lust. 

Clairvoyance points the road that all should travel. But to be 
valuable, it should be healthy. Sydney Smith said a good thing 
■when he remarked : — 

" Never give way to melancholy ; resist it steadily, for the 
habit will encroach. I once gave a lady two-and-twenty receipts 
against melancholy. One was a bright fire ; another to remember 
all the pleasant things said to and of her ; another to keep a box 
of sugar-plums on the chimney-piece, and a kettle simmering on 
the hob. 

" Never teach false morality. How exquisitely absurd to tell 
girls that beauty is of no value — dress of no use ! Beauty is of 
value ; her whole prosperity and happiness in life may often de- 
pend on a new gown or a becoming bonnet ; and if she has five 
grains of common sense she will find this out. The great thing is 
to teach her their just value, and that there must be something bet- 
ter under a bonnet than a pretty face for real happiness. But 
never sacrifice truth. 

"lam convinced that digestion is the great secret of life ; and 



INTERIOR VISION. 27 

that character, talents, virtues, and qualities are powerfully affect- 
ed by beef, mutton, pie-crust, and rich soups. I have often 
thought that I could feed or starve men into many virtues and 
vices, and affect them more powerfully with the instruments of 
cookery than Timotheus could do formerly with his lyre." 

The principle applies to clairvoyance (lucidity). Be so health- 
ily, or not at all. Self-mesmerization is a very safe and sure road 
if it is a slow process. As a matter of course, every tyro and ex- 
perimentalist will not make a grand success, because in too great 
a hurry ; nor is it to be expected ; neither will every one skate 
or sing well who tries, until a fair amount of practice shall 
enable them to do so ; that practice necessarily involving many 
failures before the final triumph. Mesmerism, self or foreign, has 
been in use as an educator for hundreds of long ages, as is proved 
by the sculptures and tablets of Ancient Egypt, Syria, Nineveh, 
and Babylon, fashioned by civilized man over forty thousand years 
ago, if there be any truth in the archaeological conclusions of Botta, 
Mariette, Champollion, Lepsius, Rawlings, Leonard Horner, and 
Baron Bunsen ; and in those ancient days, magnetism and clair- 
voyance, judging from art relics yet remaining, were, as now, used 
practically. Then probably, as now, a large class of learned men 
affirmed diseases mainly to spring from bad states of the blood and 
organs, totally ignoring what clairvoyance then, as now, asserted, 
that they were (and are) frequently the result of deeply hidden 
causes, albeit there is some doubt whether they even distantly 
glimpsed the recently discovered fact, that every disorder bears its 
own signature or means of cure, as plainly as its direct symptoms 
themselves are apparent ; that many diseases that have success- 
fully baffled medical science are due to magnetic disturbances in 
many instances, — fairly eluding detection until forced to yield 
the secret to clairvoyance ; that still other, and many, diseases can 
only be accounted for on the doctrine of spores, — already herein 
explained; nor, furthermore, were the "learned" ones of that 
day, any more than their brethren or class in our own time, prob- 
ably aware, that at least three-fifths of all the evil in the world — 
social, mental, national, religious, plrysical, and moral, sickness, 
agony, and premature death — sprung and spring from troubles, 
fevers, colds, and acidities in the love departments of our com- 
mon human nature, as clairvoyance universally demonstrates be- 



28 INTERIOR VISION. 

yond all cavil, as it also, and it alone, can indicate the universal 

remedy. 

Most people are sick because there's trouble in the love nature, 
and that trouble demoralizes the man or woman, destroys the fam- 
ily compact, and, disorganizing the foundations of society, engen- 
ders multitudinous hells on earth, and makes crime abound like 
locusts in a plague ! 

No power on earth but true clairvoyance, can either detect the 
causes at work productive of this domestic inharmony, or suggest 
the remedy. 

But what is true clairvoyance? I reply, it is the ability, by 
self-effort or otherwise, to drop beneath the floors of the outer 
world, and come up, as it were, upon the other side. We often see 
what we take to be sparks or flashes of light before us in the 
night ; but they are not really what they seem, but are instanta- 
neous penetrations of the veil that, pall-like, hangs between this 
outer world of Dark and Cold, and the inner realm of Light and 
Fire, in the midst of which it is embosomed, or, as it were, en- 
shrouded ; and true clairvoyance is the lengthened uplifting of that 
heavy pall. It is not the insane raving of obsession, possession, 
of a puling sickly somnambule ! It is not a lure, to win a man or 
woman from correct practices, or their ideas and standard of Virtue, 
— the Latin word for strength ; it is not a trap to bait one's sen- 
ses ; nor the mere ability to make a sort of twilight introspection 
of your own or some one else's corpus; nor a thing calculated to 
undermine the religious principles of any human being, nor to sap 
one's moral nature in any way, or to exhaust the strength. But 
it is a rich and very valuable power, whose growth depends upon 
the due observance of the normal laws which underlie it. The 
price of power is obedience to law. If we would be strong, clear- 
seeing, powerful, the rules thereof must be observed ; and the adept 
and acolyte alike be ever conscious that no earthly fame gained, 
or place reached, or wealth accumulated, will, or probably can, 
avail them or any human being, when, passed over the river of 
death, we take our places in the ranks of the vast armies of the 
dead, as they file by the Halls of Destiny, past the gates of God. 
What, then, is clairvoyance ? I reply : It is the light which the 
seer reaches sometimes through years of agony ; by wading through 
oceans, as it were, of tears and blood ; it is an interior unfoldment 



INTERIOR VISION. 29 

of native powers, culminating in somnambulic vision through the 
mesmeric processes, and the comprehension and application of 
the principles that underlie and overflow human nature and the 
physical universe, together with a knowledge of the principia of the 
vast spirit-sea whereon the worlds of space are cushioned. Thus 
true clairvoyance generally is knowledge resulting from experi 
ment, born of agony, and purified by the baptism of fire. 

It may require a special examination in certain cases to deter- 
mine whether the person is best fitted, naturally, for a sympathist, 
or psychometer, truly such in any one of a thousand phases, 
or for a clairvoyant in any particular degree. To go blindly 
to work is but to waste your time and effort to no purpose what- 
ever. If your natural bent, organization, and genius best fit you 
for one particular thing, it were folly to attempt to force yourself 
into another path. 

Never begin a course of experiments unless you intend to carry 
them on to certain success. To begin a course of magnetic ex- 
periments, and become tired in a fortnight because you do not suc- 
ceed, is absurd. Mesmeric circles are, all things considered, prob- 
ably the quickest way to reach practical results in a short time. 

In the attempt to reach clairvoyance, most people are alto- 
gether in too great a hurry to reach grand results, and in that haste 
neglect the very means required, permitting the mind to wander all 
over creation, — from the consideration of a miserable love affair of 
no account whatever, to an exploration of the mysteries enshroud- 
ing the great nebulae of Orion or Centauri. Now that won't do. If 
one wants to be able to peruse the life-scroll of others, the first 
thing learned must be the steady fixing of mind and purpose, aim 
and intent upon a single point, wholly void of other thought or 
object. The second requirement is, Think the thing closely ; and 
third, will steadily, firmly, to know the correct solution of the 
problem in hand, and then the probabilities are a hundred to ten 
that the vision thereof, or the phantorama of it, will pass before 
you like a vivid dream ; or it will flash across your mind with 
resistless conviction of truth. 

Mechanical or magnetic means may be used to facilitate results, 
but never by the opiates or narcotics. Lured by what Cahagnet 
wrote about the use of narcotic agents, and strengthened in the 
hope by what Theophile Gautier, Bayard Taylor, Fitz Hugh 



30 



INTERIOR VISION. 



Ludlow, and various other travellers, wrote regarding the use of 
one, early in the year 1855, 1 was led to make two experiments ; 
but may God forgive me for so doing. Nothing on earth could 
induce me to repeat them, or to suffer others to do so, for I know no 
possible good, but much of unmitigated evil, can result therefrom. 

In attempting to gain lucidity, I strongly advise purely magnet- 
ical means, either at the hands of a judicious manipulator, or by 
the means indicated herein. A magnetic bandage worn over the 
head, with the polar plates either in the front or back head, or 
covering either temple, may be worn to equalize the currents, and 
induce the slumber. A most splendid magnetic plate is made 
here in Boston, not only peculiarly adapted to the above purposes, 
hut also of infinite value to all sick persons, especially females, 
and men laboring under any form of nervous impotentia. . . 

No one with eyes can help seeing the notorious fact that infanti- 
cide is becoming quite too common, nor, if he has a heart as it 
should be, avoid regretting that it is so. Not only does the evil 
exist among unmarried females, but to a far greater extent among 
the "married," — as that term is generally understood. Why is 
this so ? The last sad fact, I mean. The answer is all too easily 
reached. It is because so many married women live, not in the an- 
ticipated heaven of wedlock, but in an unmitigated opposite thereof. 
"Women who love their husbands, delight in the sweet, fond cares, 
and deep, full joys of maternity ; and happy wives never stain 
their souls with murder, for such it is, at any stage of actual preg- 
nancy, no matter what sophistry may be called into play to explain 
the thing away. Such casuistry is of no avail at the bar of final 
judgment, where God himself is on one side the bar in the shape 
of a quickened conscience, and a murdered human being on the 
other. No matter how successful the mother may be in the whirl 
of life and society, in drowning out the remembrance of the evil 
deed, there will, as surely as God lives, come a time when before 
her weeping eyes will flit the phantom shape of her dead baby, 
and that vision will cling to her for many a long epoch after she 
shall have crossed the boundaries of time, and entered the wide 
domain of eternity. How shall this dreadful thing be put to a 
final stop ? I reply, not by preaching and denouncing, nor by 
holding up the horror to public view, for that will never stop it. 
Just at this point Love comes in and says : — All these murders 



INTEEIOR VISION. 31 

are done because I, Love, do not reign in the household, but Lust 
has taken my place. Four-fifths of the children, dead and living, 
are begotten of sick mothers, in a storm of lust, by thoughtless 
fathers, generally just after a family quarrel, by way of " making 
up " and cooling down the tempest. Husbands are, if anything, 
more to blame for such a state of things, than are the wives, — 
for a loved woman never kills I 

If a man loves a woman, and that woman purposely destroys 
the babe of her body, even at any stage of its career, from incep- 
tion to maturity, the curse of G-od and his blight is sure to fall on 
her and destroy the love between them. He may even encourage 
her to the act, but still the natural curse impends, and in some 
way it will surely fall, for God always punishes murder. Tempted 
woman, remember this ! 

Let no father of an unwedded woman's babe, be ashamed of his 
own flesh and blood, but do his best to render it and its mother's 
life happy and contented, for, in the drama of ages, it may be that 
in other worlds, that child may link him to the Gods ! And let 
husbands learn that a child is the richest property on earth, — 
genuine real estate, and all the more valuable when properly 
organized, which it can never be unless genuine love presided at 
its incarnation. And let all true men and women join, every- 
where, in one grand effort, here and now, to very speedily estab- 
lish a refuge for poor women, wherein they shall, free of cant, 
creed or sect, color or nationality, be provided for in the season 
of trial, unquestioned, and being thus removed from the awful 
temptation of foeticide, bring forth their children healthily to, and 
for, God, and this great MAN-wanting world ; and then, when re- 
covered, provide, if need be, for the youngling, and repeating the 
sweet words of the dear Jesus, say, " Let them who are without 
sin cast at thee the first stone." " Sister, neither do I condemn 
thee, go thy way and sin no more ! " 

Is such an ambition a worthy one ? I think so. The day of 
power to do this thing is near at hand. The pleasant hope is the 
nursling of long, bitter, and weary years. And lo ! when all 
seemed darkest, the golden sun shone out bright and fairly, and 
albeit I, like all frail creatures of God's infinite love and mercy, 
have erred, yet never once from the heart, ever from the head, — 
angular head, — which the world will one day forget, but, I hope 



32 INTERIOR VISION. 

not the soul behind it, for have never fairly made myself under- 
stood. It will not always be so, for, — 

Still the world goes round and round, 

And men their courses run; 
But ever the right comes uppermost, 

And ever is justice done. 

And, after all, few if any of us want or ask for pity. Justice is 
all that's needed — stern justice ; and when that is truly accorded, 
there will be found full many an angel where devils only have 
been looked for. I, for one, believe this, and have abounding 
lenity towards all people on God's earth, except the Slayers of 
the Innocents. 

And now I end my task with a bit of advice, hoping that the 
matter of this book, original and selected, may benefit all. To 
everybody the poet sa}^s, and I repeat : — f 

" G-od gave us hands, — one left, one right; 

The first to help ourselves; — the other 
To stretch abroad in kindly might, 

And keep along a suffering brother. 
Then if you see a sister fall, 

And bow her head before the weather, 
Assist at once ; remove the thrall, 

And suffer, or grow strong — together' " 

It may chance that you, reader, may have enemies ; and if so, 
take my advice — for I have them too, — sap-heads mainly. Go 
straight on, and don't mind them ; if they get in your way, walk 
round them, regardless of their spite. A man or woman who has 
no enemies is seldom good for anything, — is made of that kind of 
material which is so easily worked that every one has a hand in 
it. A sterling character is one who thinks and speaks what she 
or he thinks ; such are sure to have enemies. They are as neces- 
sary as fresh air. They keep people alive and active. A cele- 
brated character, who was surrounded by enemies, used to remark, 
" They are sparks which, if you do not blow, will go out of them- 
selves." "Live down prejudice," was the "iron Duke's" motto. 
Let this be your feeling while endeavoring to live down the scandal 
of those who are bitter against you ; if you stop to dispute, you 



INTERIOR VISION. 33 

do but as they desire, and open the way for more abuse. Let 
them talk ; there will be a reaction if you perform but your duty, 
and hundreds who were once alienated from you will flock to you 
and acknowledge their error. Keep right on the rough or even 
tenor of your own way. 

Why look back to the past, when you should be gazing forward 
to the future ? why hurry to the old haunts, when you see the 
whole world hastening the other way? A little generous pru- 
dence, a little forbearance of one another, and some grains of char- 
ity, might win all to join and unite into one general and brotherly 
search after truth ; could we but forego this prelatic tradition of 
crowding free consciences and Christian liberties into canons and 
precepts of men, I doubt not, if some great and worthy stranger 
were to come among us, wise to discern the mould and temper of 
a people, and how to govern it, observing the high hopes and aims, 
the diligent alacrity Of our extended thoughts and reasons, in pur- 
suance of truth and freedom, but that he would cry out as Pyrrhus 
did, admiring the Roman docility and courage, " If such were my 
Epirots, I would not despair the greatest design that could be 
attempted to make a church or a kingdom happy." Have you 
faith in the great spirit of our mighty people ? Can you discern 
the instinct of its immortal longing? Do you hope to stem the 
tide of its irresistible advance, any more than to take the swallows 
from the sky and stop their flight toward summer? Is it possible 
j'ou can believe that tradition will serve for anything but men's 
couch dreams, or that the shadows of antiquity will stand for 
the substance of Now ? The President, Congress, and Supreme 
Court of to-day are not, do not mean, the same powers of fifty 
years ago. We call our Constitution the same ; but laws vary in 
their effect with the tendencies of their administrators, as com- 
pletely as if they were repealed, or altered in their substance. 
Public opinion consigns some to the cobwebs of the obsolete ; 
altered views change their very interpretation. Are you alone 
insensible to the change? If not, be up and stirring with the 
times, — in all affairs, of church, State, politics, labor, love, 
marriage, and the family; for we live in stirring times, when every 
one of us must prove ourselves either pieces or pawns in the chess 
game of life, and to avoid being checked must play well ! 

In these days of turmoil, climatic changes, political change, and 



34 



INTERIOR VISION. 



revolution, imposture and true revelation, rampant quackery and 
blooming science, honesty and villany side by side, people may 
falter and despair of the world and its fortunes ; but to do so 
is to distrust God, and doubt his providence, for he has safely 
brought us through so far, and therefore let us truly trust him to 
the end. 

Reader, whoever you may be, I beg you to not only read, but study 
well, the glorious meaning of the following sublime jewel from the 
pen of one of Islam's poets ; for once armed with its philosophy you 
will be impregnable to all assaults, and stand firm amidst the wild- 
est tempest : — 



V 



'*' Allah! Allah! ' cried the sick man, racked with pain the long night through, 

Till with prayer his heart grew tender, till his lips like honey grew. 

But at morning came the tempter ; said, ' Call louder, child of Pain, 

See if Allah ever hears, or answers, " Here am I" again.' 

Like a stab the cruel cavil through his brain and pulses went; 

To his heart an icy coldness, to his brain a darkness sent. 

Then before him stands Elias: says, 'My child, why thus dismayed? 

Dost repent thy former fervor ? Is thy soul of prayer afraid ? ' 

' Ah! ' he cried, ' I've called so often; never heard the " Here am I; " 

And I thought God will not pity; will not turn on me his eye.' 

Then the grave Elias answered, ' God said, " Rise, Elias, go 

Speak to him, the sorely tempted ; lift him from his gulf of woe. 

Tell him that his very longing is itself an answering cry; 

That his prayer, " Come, gracious Allah! " is my answer " Here am I ! "' 

Every inmost aspiration is God's angel undefiled ; 

And in every ' my Father! ' slumbers deep a ' Here, my child ! ' " 



Women, a last word to you. Perhaps you have a lover or 
husband, and, that being the case, I say, 

If you prize him, let him know it; 
If you love him, show it, show it. 



The cure for all wrong and evil is to be found in Clairvoyance, which 
will enable woman to avoid certain risks, at certain times ; enable man 
to understand himself, his wife, and his neighbor; and thus will seership 
banish crime, and bring peace on earth and good-will among men. So 
may it be. Let us now turn to another branch of the great subject of 
seership. 



INTERIOR VISION. 35 



PART SECOND. 

THEORY AND PRACTICE — THE MAGNETIC MIRROR. 

INTRODUCTORY. 



dinary treatise, — a very difficult task, because wholly out of the ordinary 
literary channels, — a subject almost wholly unknown to the great ma- 
jority of readers, and a labor that necessitated very extensive reading and 
research of and among 

" Many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore " — 

were threefold: First, to relieve myself of the pressure of corre- 
spondence on the subject of the treatise, and occult matters generally, by 
recording the principal points upon which inquiries are made of me, from 
the fact that I am generally supposed to be thoroughly versed in many of 
those subtle sciences which for ages have constituted the special studies 
of the fraternities Pythagorean and Rosicrucian, to which I have, for 
many years, had the honor and privilege to belong. The second motive 
was that of obliging one who, in the dark hour of sickness, proved to me 
a friend indeed ; and, thirdly, because the time had come wherein to at 
least partially ventilate a much misunderstood and tabooed subject, espe- 
cially as the opportunity was afforded me just then to avail myself of 
very rare and unusual facilities for obtaining information on the subjects 
treated of, from one of the first masters of occult science now on the 
globe in flesh and blood and bone — I allude to the famous Armenian 
Philosopher, Cuilna Vilmara, then on a brief visit to the shores of 
Republican and matter-of-fact America. 

Aside from these motives is another : "Within these past few years there 
has grown up a very widespread discontent regarding theories, theorists, 
and the real causes underlying and subtending the strange and varied 
Psychical Phenomena of the age. Especially is this true with reference 
to the but little understood, yet in reality vast, science of magnetics, one 
branch of which the following pages are devoted to. The want was felt 
for a handbook. That want is here supplied. 

Amidst the heavy pressure on my time, health, and vital power, but 
little opportunity has been hitherto afforded the writer hereof, to give the 



36 



INTERIOR VISION, 



subject the attention it so richly deserves. The task of bringing its scat- 
tered ends together has been imperfectly performed herein perhaps ; yet 
have I fearlessly stripped it of the garb of mystery purposely thrown 
around it by pseudo-mystics, charlatans, and the rank impostors who 
abound on all hands, and bring odium and disgrace on a matter whereof 
they are wholly ignorant. 

Mirror-seeing is unquestionably a fact and a science, however some 
may fail in their efforts to see, and despite the sneers of others who are 
wise in their own conceit, know nothing whatever of the principia of that 
which they so glibly deride and condemn, and who have not the kind or 
quality of brains or mental power possessed by those who are better 
qualified than they are. 

Mirror-seeing is but another mode and phase of clairvoyance ; it is the 
self-same power, reached by a different road, and different processes, but 
is, and can be, carried to a far greater degree of perfection by many per- 
sons, while others totally and wholly fail. And here I strongly advise all 
to refrain from the expense and trouble of mirror-experimentation, who 
have no tendencies of an interior magnetic or mesmeric character. But 
possessing these, it is highly probable that satisfactory results will follow 
a proper trial. 

In the " Master Passion," I promised to make a statement in reference 
to the Davenport Brothers — so-called mediums. They are not worth the 
ink. I once wrote a book for them from so-called facts and data which 
they furnished me, and which I believed were true — as I certainly be- 
lieved them to be genuine media. I am now satisfied that the data fur- 
nished were wholly untrue, and the alleged facts entirely imaginary, — in 
a word, I believe that the D. B.'s are dead beats ; in other words , that they 
are skilful jugglers, without the slightest real spiritual power about any 
of their performances, save it be " ardent spirits." I am free to confess 
that for years the brothers deceived me. I acknowledge the fact. ''Why 
did you not apply certain occult power you are said to possess, to the in- 
vestigation ? " I reply : Never thought of it for a long time ; but event- 
ually became convinced it had been better to have clone so years ago. 
But better late than never. 

These, then, are my reasons for writing this book. 

P. B. R. 



The famous Dr. Dee, of London, and thousands of others, since and 
before him too, used a plate of polished cannel coal (which identical plate 
I have myself seen in the British Museum), and other instrumentalities 
also, as a means whereby to scan and cognize mysteries otherwise wholly 
unreachable. Some sturdy matter-of-fact people in these material clays, 
wherein a great deal of pseudo-miracleism is current, along with a very 
little that is real and genuine, are apt to ridicule and laugh at the idea 
that a mere physical agent can ^enable one to penetrate the floors of the 



INTERIOR VISION. 37 

waking world, and come up, all brilliant and keen, upon the other side. 
Such scout the notion that an oval, concave, black-white mirror, or a crys- 
tal, or even a splotch of ink in a virgin's hand, are really such instrumen- 
talities; and yet I know that such is, incont rove rtibly, the fact; and there 
are thousands in this country who can testify to the startling truth of 
what Dee and others claimed in that regard : — 

What if upon the mirror's face serene 
Your lot in life be written ? What, if its pearly sphoro 

Disclose to mortal view the far and dark unseen ? 
This seemeth strange, yet doth to me appear. 

I, far events can often clear preview, 

And in my thrice-sealed, dark prospective glass 

Foresee what future days shall bring to pass. 

There, various news I learn, of love and strife, 
Peace, war, health, sickness, death and life ; 
Of loss and gain; of famine and of store; 
Deceits of husbands, wives; of travels on the shore; 
Of storms at sea; the rise and fall of stocks; 
The market's state; and great commercial shocks; 
Of business speculations; good fortune in the air; 
Of when to stop, or go; 'gainst danger to prepare; 
Of turns of fortune; changes in the state; 
The fall of favorites; projects of the great. 



The mystical hath been to me a more familiar face than that of friends 
on earth. In its solemn school of dim and solitary discipline, learned I 
the languages of other peopled worlds. 

Unquestionably immortality is a truth, sublime as Creation, more solid 
than the granite hills ; and it has been demonstrated in a thousand ways, 
physically, by viewless spiritual beings. There have been true mediums; 
there may be still ; but it is equally certain that scores of heartless trick- 
sters abound, whose business it is to counterfeit these testimonies from 
the dead. These wretched people thrive, for they are sustained by an 
unthinking class of believers in spiritualism, who care all for phenomena, 
nothing for principia. I call them horse-radish spiritualists; and their 
name is Legion. 

Just so in other departments of occult science. False media and pre- 
tended clairvoyants, and what I call " horse-radish spiritualists," abound 
on all hands, — downright, unreasoning fanatics, else a class of most 
wretched people who, for the sake of a little pecuniary gain, will not, do 
not, hesitate in the grossest possible manner to counterfeit true and real, 
and by their trickery bring odium on true spiritualism and genuine seer- 
ship. In these days a real medium or clairvoyant is the marked exception 



38 INTERIOR VISION. 

to a very broad rale. Just so is it with crystal and mirror seeing, there 
beiu«- ten false to every single true one in the land. The thing itself is 
older than any civilization now on the globe, yet nevertheless, like genuine 
mediumship, is constantly being counterfeited. Indeed, turn whichever 
way you will, a great and deep-seated discontent prevails in the house- 
hold of the spiritual faith. It is not so among Eosicrucians, albeit their 
belief in spirits is as strong as strong can be; not fanatical — but strong. 
The people are getting tired of modern spiritualism, for they accept, as I 
do, its real facts, but discard its jargon and crudities. Interested parties 
try to hide its blotches, but they will show themselves. The reason is 
that there's too much theorizing and too little religion ; too much head, 
and a great sparseness of heart. Carlyle wrote to a friend of mine that a 
certain given form of modern spiritualism was the " liturgy of Dead Sea 
apes." Much of it is; but out of what is good and true in it will, I hope, 
spring glorious things of heart and hope in the good time coming. 

Madame George Sand gives an account of the famous Count St. Ger- 
main, one of the most remarkable magic-mirrorists that ever lived this 
side the hills of India, and of whom it was claimed that he had lived for 
centuries, despite the wear and tear of time, and the surging revolutions 
of decaying empires : — 

" What makes this Count de St. Germain an interesting and remarkable 
personage, to say the least, in my opinion is the number of new and ingen- 
ious claims by which he unravels the doubtful points of the obscurer his- 
tory of States. Question him about any subject or epoch of history, and 
you will be surprised to hear him unfold or invent an infinity of probable 
and interesting things, which throw a new light on what has been doubt- 
ful and mysterious. Mere erudition does not suffice to explain history. 
This man must have a mighty mind and great knowlege of humanity. 
. . . It is with great difficulty that he can be made to talk of the won- 
derful things. . . . He is aware that he is treated as a charlatan and 
dreamer, and this seems to trouble him much. . . . He refuses to ex- 
plain his supernatural power. . . He has filled Europe with countless 
strange tales." . . Of Count Cagliostro : "It is well known, when 
Frederick the Great ordered him to quit Berlin, that he left it, in his car- 
riage, in propria persona, at twelve exactly, passing at the same time 
through each of the gates; at least twenty thousand people will swear to 
that. The guards at every gate saw the same hat, wig, carriage and 
horses, and you cannot convince them that on that day there were not at 
least six Cagliostros in the field." That same Cagliostro fashioned and 
owned a magic mirror, now in Florence, Italy, in which whosoever he 
permitted to gaze, could, and did, see any three things or persons they 
desired to, no matter whether living or dead ! And thousands as sacredly 
believe this as they do that two and two make four. Nor is this belief 
any part or parcel of spiritism, so-called ; nor superstition ; but it is per- 



INTERIOR VISION. 39 

fectly scientific, the whole thing being of a magnetic nature, — clairvoy- 
ance under unusual conditions, and easily formulated exactly, as will be 
done before I finish this monograph. I quote : — 

Frederick, the Great, was thus forced to resume his philosophical 
serenity without assistance. 

He said, " Since we are talking' of Cagliostro, and the hour for ghosts 
and stories has come, I will tell you one which will show how hard it is 
to have faith in sorcerers . My story is true ; for I have it from the per- 
son to whom it happened last year." 

"Is the story terrible? " asked La Mettrie. 

" Perhaps," said Frederick. 

" Then I will shut the door; for I cannot listen with a door gaping." 

La Mettrie shut the door, and the king spoke as follows : — 

" Cagliostro, as you know, had the trick of showing people pictures, 
or rather magic mirrors, on which he caused the absent to appear. He 
pretended to be able to reveal the most secret occupations of their lives 
in this manner. Jealous women went to consult him about the infidelities 
of their husbands, and some lovers and husbands have learned a great deal 
about their ladies' capers. The magic mirror has betrayed mysteries of 
iniquity. Be that as it may, the opera-singers all met one night and 
offered him a good supper and admirable music, provided he would perform 
some of his feats. He consented, and appointed a day to meet Porporino, 
Conciolini, the Signora Astrua, and Porporina, and show them heaven or 
hell, as they pleased. 

" The Barberini family were also there. Giovonna Barberini asked to 
see the late Doge of Venice, and as Cagliostro gets up ghosts in very good 
style, she was very much frightened, and rushed completely overpowered 
from the cabinet in which Cagliostro had placed her, tete-a-tete with the 
doge. La Porporina, with the calm expression which, as you know, is so 
peculiar to her, told Cagliostro she would have faith in his science, if he 
would show her the person of whom she then thought, but whom it was 
not necessary for her to name, for if he was a sorcerer, he must be able to 
read her soul as he would read a book. 

" < What you ask is not a trifle,' said our count ; c yet I think I can sat- 
isfy you, provided that you swear, by all that is holy and terrible, not to 
speak to the person I shall evoke, to make no motion nor gesture, to utter 
no sound, while the apparition stands before you.' 

" Porporina promised to do so, and went boldly into the dark closet. 

" I need not tell you, gentlemen, that this young woman is one of the 
most intellectual and correct persons to be met with. She is well edu- 
cated, thinks well about all matters, and I have reason to know no narrow 
or restricted idea makes any impression upon her. 

" She remained in the ghost-room long enough to make her companions 
very uneasy. All was silent as possible, and finally she came out very 



40 



INTERIOR VISION. 



pale, and with tears streaming from her eyes. She immediately said to 
her companions, 'If Cagliostro be a sorcerer, he is a deceiving- one: 
Have faith in nothing that he shows you.' She would say no more. Con- 
ciolini, however, told me a few days after, at one of my concerts, of this 
wonderful entertainment. I promised myself to question Porporina 
about it, the first time she sang at Sans Souci. I had much difficulty in 
making her speak of it, but thus she told me : — 

" < Cagliostro has, beyond a doubt, the strange power of producing 
spectres so like truth that it is impossible for the calmest minds to be 
unmoved by them. His knowledge, however, is incomplete, and I would 
not advise you, sire, to make him your Minister of Police, for he would 
perpetrate strange mistakes. Thus, when I asked him to show me the 
absent person 'I wished to see, I thought of my music-master, Porpora, 
who is now at Vienna. Instead of him, I saw in the magic-room a very 
dear friend I lost during the current year.' " 

" Pcste ! " said D'Argens, " that is more wonderful even than the appari- 
tion of a living person." 

" Wait a moment, gentlemen. Cagliostro had no doubt but what he had 
shown was the phantom of a living person, and, when it had disappeared, 
asked Porporina if what she had seen was satisfactory. ' In the first 
place, monsieur,' said she, * I wish to understand it. Will you explain ? ' 
— ' That surpasses my power. Be assured that your friend is well, and 
usefully employed.' To this the signora replied, 'Alas! sir, you have 
done me much wrong ; you showed me a person of whom I did not think, 
and who is, you say, now living. I closed his eyes six months ago.' "... 

" All this is very fine," said La Mettrie ; "but does not explain how your 
majesty's Porporina saw the dead alive. If she is gifted with as much 
firmness and reason as your majesty says, the fact goes to disprove your 
majesty's argument. The sorcerer, it is true, was mistaken, in producing 
a dead rather than a living man. It, however, makes it the more certain 
that he controls both life and death. In that respect, he is greater than 
your majesty, which, if it does not displease your majesty, has killed many 
men, but never resuscitated a single one." 

" Then we are to believe in the devil," said the king, laughing at the 
comic glances of La Mettrie at Quintus Icilius." 

" To conclude. . . . Your Porporina is either foolish or credulous, 
and saw her dead man, or she was philosophical, and saw nothing. She 
was frightened, however." 

" Not so ; she was distressed," said the king, " as all naturally would be, 
at the sight or portrait which would exactly recall a person loved, but 
know we shall see no more. But if I must tell you all, I will say, that she 
subsequently was afraid, and that her moral power after this test was not 
in so sound a state as it was previously. Thenceforth she has been liable 
to a dark melancholy, which is always the proof of weakness or disorder 



INTERIOR VISION". 41 

of our faculties. Her mind was touched, I am confident, though she 
denies it." 

. . . " And I confess I am under the influence, if not under the power 
of Cagliostro. Imagine, that after having promised to show me the person 
of whom I thought, the name of whom he pretended to read in my eyes, 
he showed me another. Besides, he showed me a person as living, whom 
he did not know to be dead. Notwithstanding this double error, he resus- 
citated the husband I had lost, and that will ever be to me a painful and 
inexpressible enigma." 

" He showed you some phantom, and fancy filled up the details." 
"I can assure you that my fancy was in no respect interested. I ex- 
pected to see in a mirror some representation of Maestro Porpora, for I 
had spoken often of him at supper, and while deploring his absence, had 
seen that Cagliostro paid no little attention to my words. To make his 
task more easy, I chose in my mind the face of Porpora, as the subject of 
the apparition, and I expected him certainly, not having as yet considered 
the test as serious. Finally, at perhaps the only moment in my life in 
which I did not think of the Count, he appeared. Cagliostro asked me 
when I went into the magic closet, if I would consent to have my eyes 
bandaged, and follow him, holding on to his hand. As he was a man of 
good reputation, I did not hesitate ; but made it a condition that he would 
not leave me for an instant. ' I was going,' said he, ' to address you a 
request not to leave me a moment, and not to let go my hand, without 
regard to what may happen, or what emotion you may feel.' I promised 
him ; but a simple affirmative did not suffice. He made me solemnly swear 
that I would make no gesture nor exclamation, but remain mute and silent 
during the whole of the experiment. He then put on his glove, and hav- 
ing covered my head with a hood of black velvet, which fell over my 
shoulders, he made me walk about five minutes without my being able to 
hear any door opened or shut. The hood kept me from being aware of 
any change in the atmosphere, therefore I could not know whether I had 
gone out of the room or not, for he made me make such frequent turns, 
that I had no appreciation of the direction. At last he paused ; and with 
one hand removed the hood, so lightly that I was not even aware of it. 
My respiration having become more free, he informed me that I might 
look around. I found myself, however, in such intense darkness that I 
could ascertain nothing. After a short time, I saw aluminous star, which 
at first trembled, and soon became brilliant before me. At first, it seemed 
most remote ; but, when at its brightest, appeared very near me. It was 
produced, I think, of a light which became more and more intense, and 
which was behind a transparency. Cagliostro made me approach the star, 
which was an orifice pierced in the wall. On the other side of that wall 
I saw a chamber, magnificently decorated, and filled with lights regularly 
arranged. This room, in its character and ornaments, had every air of a 
place dedicated to magical operations. I had not time, however, to 



42 INTERIOR VISION. 

examine it, my attention being absorbed by a person who sat before a 
table. He was alone, and hid his face with his hands, as if immersed in 
deep meditation. I could not see his features, and his person was dis- 
guised by a costume in which I had hitherto seen no one. As far as I was 
able to remark, it was a robe or cloak of white satin, faced with purple, 
fastened over the breast with hieroglyphic gems, on which I observed a 
rose, a triangle, a cross, a death's-head, and many rich ribbons of various 
kinds. All that I could see was that it was not Porpora. After one or 
two minutes, this mysterious personage, which I began to fancy a statue, 
slowly moved its hands, and I saw the face of Count Albert distinctly, not 
as it had last met my gaze, covered with the shadows of death, but 
animated amid its pallor, and full of soul in its serenity; such, in fine, as I 
had seen it in its most beautiful seasons of calm and confidence. I was 
on the point of uttering a cry, and by an involuntary movement crushing 
the crystal which separated him from me. A violent pressure of Caglios- 
tro's hand reminded me of my oath, and impressed me with I know not 
what vague terror. Just then a door opened at the extremity of the room 
in which I saw Albert; and many unknown persons, dressed as he was, 
joined him, each bearing a sword. After having made strange gestures, 
as if they had been playing a pantomine, they spoke to him, in a very 
solemn tone, words I could not comprehend. He arose and went towards 
them, and replied in words equally strange, and which were unintelligible 
to me, though now I know German nearly as well as my mother tongue. 
This dialogue was like that which we hear in dreams, and the strangeness 
of the scene, the miracle of the apparition, had so much of this character, 
that I really doubted whether I dreamed or not. Cagliostro, however, 
forced me to be motionless, and I recognized the voice of Albert so per- 
fectly that I could not doubt the reality of what I saw. At last, com- 
pletely carried away by the scene, I was about to forget my oath and speak 
to him, when the hood again was placed over my head and all became 
dark. ' If you make the least noise,' said Cagliostro, ' neither you nor I 
will see the light again.' I had strength enough to follow him, and walk 
for a long time amid the zigzags of an unknown space. Finally, when he 
took away the hood again, I found myself in his laboratory, which was 
dimly lighted as it had been at the commencement of this adventure. 
Cagliostro was very pale, and still trembled, for, as I walked with him, I 
became aware of a convulsive agitation of his arm, and that he hurried me 
along as if he was under the influence of great terror. The first thing he 
said was to reproach me bitterly about my want of loyalty, and the terri- 
ble dangers to which I had exposed him by wishing to violate my promises. 
' I should have remembered,' said he, ' that women are not bound by their 
word of honor, and that one should forbear to accede to their rash and 
vain curiosity.' His tone was very angry. 

" Hitherto I had participated in the terror of my guide. I had been so 
amazed at Albert's being alive, that I had not inquired if this was possi- 



INTERIOR VISION. 43 

ble. I had even forgotten that death had bereft me of this dear and pre- 
cious friend. The emotion of the magician recalled to me that all this 
was very strange, and that I had seen only a spectre. My reason, how- 
ever, repudiated what was impossible, and the bitterness of the reproaches 
of Cagliostro caused a kind of ill-humor, which protected me from weak- 
ness. « You feign to have faith in your own falsehood,' said I, with 
vivacity ; ' ah, your game is very cruel. Yes ; you sport with all that is 
most holy, even with death itself.' 

'"Soul without faith, and without power,' said he, angrily, but in a 
most imposing manner. ' You believe in death, as the vulgar clo, and yet 
you had a great master — one who said: " We do not die. Nothing dies; 
there is nothing dies" You accuse me of falsehood, and seem to forget 
that the only thing which is untrue here is the name of death in your im- 
pious mouth.' I confess that this strange reply overturned all my thoughts, 
and for a moment overcame the resistance of my troubled mind. How 
came this man to be aware of my relations with Albert, and even the 
secrets of his doctrine ? Did he believe as Albert did, or did he make use 
of this as a means to acquire an ascendency over me ? 

" I was confused and alarmed. Soon, however, I said that this gross 
manner of interpreting Albert's faith could not be mine, and that God, not 
the impostor Cagliostro, can invoke death, or recall life. Finally, con- 
vinced that I was the dupe of an inexplicable illusion, the explanation of 
which, however, I might some day find, I arose, praising coldly the savoir- 
faire of the sorcerer, and asked him for an explanation of the whimsical 
conversation his phantoms had together. In relation to that he replied, 
that it was impossible to satisfy me, and that I should be satisfied with 
seeing the person calm, and carefully occupied. ' You will ask me in 
vain,' added he, ' what are his thoughts and actions in life. I am ignorant 
even of his name. When you desired and asked to see it, there was 
formed between you two a mysterious communication, which my power 
was capable of making able to bring you together. All science goes no 
farther.' 

" 'Your science,' said I, 'does not reach that far even; I thought of 
Porpora, and you did not present him to me.' 

" ' Of that I know nothing,' said he, in a tone serious and terrible. ' I do 
not wish to know. I have seen nothing, either in your mind, or in the 
magic mirror. My mind would not support such a spectacle, and I must 
maintain all my senses to exercise my power. The laws of science are 
infallible, and consequently, though not aware of it yourself, you must 
have thought of some one else than Porpora, since you did not see the 
latter.' " 

" Such is the talk of madmen of that kind," said the princess, shrugging 
her shoulders. "Each one has his peculiar mode ; though all, by means 
of a captious reasoning, which may be called the method of madness, so 



44 INTERIOR VISION. 

contrive, by disturbing the ideas of others, that they are never cut short, 
or disturbed themselves." 

"He certainly disturbed mine," said Consuelo; "and I was no longer 
able to analyze them. The apparition of Albert, true or false, made me 
more distinctly aware that I had lost him forever, and I shed tears. 

" < Consuelo,' said the magician in a solemn tone, and offering me his 
hand (you may imagine that my real name, hitherto unknown to all, was 
an additional surprise, when I heard him speak it), ' you have great errors 
to repair, and I trust you will neglect nothing to regain your peace of 
mind.' I had not power to reply. I sought in vain to hide my tears from 
my companions, who waited impatiently for me in the next room. I was 
more impatient yet to withdraw, and as soon as I was alone, after having 
given a free course to my grief, I passed the night in reflections and com- 
mentaries on the scenes of this fatal evening. The more I sought to un- 
derstand it, the more I became lost in a labyrinth of uncertainty ; and I 
must own that my ideas were often worse than an implicit obedience to 
the oracles of magic would have been. Worn out by fruitless suffering, I 
resolved to suspend my judgment until there should be light. Since then, 
however, I have been impressionable, subject to the vapors, sick at heart, 
and deeply sad." 

. . . u You are about to tell me that he died during the conclusion of 
the marriage ceremony. I will, however, tell you that he is not dead, that 
no one, that nothing, dies, and that we may still have communion with 
those the vulgar call dead, if we know their language and the secret of 
their lives." 

. . . " While waiting for the miracles which are about to be accom- 
plished, God, who apparently mingles in nothing, who is eternal silence, 
creates among us beings of a nature superior to our own, both for good 
and evil — angels and demons — hidden powers. The latter are to test 
the just, the former to ensure their triumph. The contest between the 
great powers has already begun. The king of evil, the father of ignorance 
and crime, defends himself in vain. The archangels have bent the bow of 
science and of truth, and their arrows have pierced the corslet of Satan. 
Satan roars and struggles, but soon will abandon falsehood, lose his 
venom, and, instead of the impure blood of reptiles, will feel the dew of 
pardon circulate through his veins. This is the clear and certain explana- 
tion of all that is incomprehensible and terrible in the world. Good and 
evil contend in higher regions which are unattainable to men. Victory 
and defeat soar above us, without its being possible for us to fix 
them. . . . Yes ; I say it is clear that men are ignorant of what occurs 
on earth. They see impiety arm itself against fate, and vice versa. They 
suffer oppression, misery, and all the scourges of discord, without their 
prayers being heard, without the intervention of the miracles of any relig- 
ion. They now understand nothing; they complain, they know not why. 
They walk blindfolded on the brink of a precipice. To this the Invisibles 



INTEEIOR VISION. 45 

impel them, though none know if their mission be of God or of evil, as at 
the commencement of Christianity, Simon, the magician, seemed to many, 
a being divine and powerful as Christ. I tell you all prodigies are of God, 
for Satan can achieve none without permission being granted him, and 
that among those called invisibles, some act by direct light from the Holy 
Spirit, while to others the light comes through a cloud, and they do good, 
fatally thinking that they do evil." 

... "A few rare persons have the power of commanding their 
ideas in a state of contemplative idleness, which is granted less frequently 
to the happy in this world than to those who earn their living by toil, 
persecution, and danger. All must recognize this mystery as providen- 
tial, without which the serenity of many unfortunate creatures would 
appear impossible to those who have not known misfortune." 

..." She then went to a rich toilette — a table of white marble sus- 
taining a mirror, in a golden frame, of excellent taste. Her attention was 
attracted by an inscription on the upper ornament of the mirror. It was : 
' If your soul be as pure as yon crystal, you will see yourself in it always — 
young and beautiful. But if vice has withered your heart, be fearful of read- 
ing in me the stern reflection of moral deformity. ,' " 

... . "If the thought of evil be in your heart, you are unworthy of con- 
templating the divine spectacle of nature ; if your heart be the home of virtue, 
look up andbless God, ivho opens to you the door of a terrestrial paradise." 

The loftiest spiritualism the world ever saw — that of ancient Jewry — 
recognized the truth of such mirrors, for they — the " Urim and Thum- 
min "-polished breast-plates — were used for purposes of a celestial 
divination, and are still so used to-day. Even many of the modern spir- 
itualists recognize the same truths, for their papers frequently contain 
articles on crystal-seeing, and the magical uses of various jewels and 
precious stones; while one of their noblest " Psalms of life" contains this 
beautiful verse : — 

" But most the watching angels guide the thought, 

If in the mortal's heart be wrong or error, 
Soon by the pure and viewless influence taught, 

He sees his wrong as in a Magic Mirror ! — 
He sees the end where leads the tortuous path, — 

Its darkness and its dangers; and, awaking, 
He finds within his soul a holier faith, 

And turns, with willing heart, his sin forsaking." 

The chief Rosicrucian of all England says, in his recent work on " Fire," 
"When the mind is surrendered up, as a clear glass (or in, and to it), 
— shows of the magical world roll in." Again : "The gauge is according 
to the amount of absorption out of this world — flights which the intelli- 
gence takes into the worlds not about us. . . We are as the telescope 



46 INTERIOR VISION. 

in the perfect sight-making of the optic glasses — in the focus of his 
glasses of sense. But there are other landscapes. . . and new sights 
float over, and through, the man-perspectives, and, in new adjustments of 
the preternatural soul-sight, new worlds are penetrated to, or, which is 
the same, undulate, centrically, to us, from out the universal flat of 
shows. Basis of the Kosicrucian secret system, and of all true mysti- 
cism or occult knowledge, it is the only thing possible. . . . We can 
glow, by working, as by heavy strokes upon our nature, as like iron in a 
forge. And this, with an exalting light, forced out — the Immortal fire — 
wealth — out of another world, even to grow visible to men's mortal 
eyes. This is ecstasy, and the Divine Illumination. None the less real, 
because we see nothing of it in the world. Else we should be, as the 
Bible says, Gods. . . . It is in this magical world of God's light, that 
sainthood becomes possible, and that the solid world and the exterior 
nature obey the God-like nature, — worked and drawn, magically, into the 
circle of its power, ... by the all-compelling magnetism. Trodden 
of the spirit. . . . It is a God-instinctive, magic life, in which unliv- 
ing things are, really, taken to live. . . . The first magician, who is 
as such recorded, and who gave distinct teachings on the subject of magic, 
is Zoroaster. The genius of Socrates, Plotin, Porphyrius, and Iamblichus, 
of Chichus and Scaliger and Cardanus, is placed in the first rank, which 
included inward (or magic) sight. In later times Robert Fludd (1638-53) 
and the great magnetist and mirror-seer, Paracelsus." We have records 
of over three thousand grand masters of the art, — all dead ; and of scores 
— all living — right in our land, — ay, within rifle-shot of where these 
lines are penned. The plane of the mirror is before us, within so few feet 
or inches ; but its lanes lead down the ages, and its roads up the starry 
steeps of the Infinite. Its field is — the Vastness below, within, above, and 
around — and elsewhere; but that elsewhere contains all life next off this 
life — is an immortal factness. . . . 

"In ancient times a natural basin of rock, kept constantly full by a 
running stream, was a favorite haunt for its magical effects. The double 
meaning of the word reflection ought here to be considered, and how, gaz- 
ing down into clear water, the mind is disposed to self-retirement, and to 
contemplation deeply tinctured with melancholy. Rocky pools and gloomy 
lakes figure in all stories of magic : witness the Craic-pol-nain in the 
Highland woods of Laynchork; the Devil's Glen in the County of Wicklow, 
Ireland; the Swedish Blokula; the witch-mountains of Italy; and the 
Babiagora, between Hungary and Poland. Similar resorts, in the glens 
of Germany, were marked, as Tacitus mentions, by salt-springs. 

" It was, really, only another form of divination by the gloomy water- 
pool, that attracted so much public attention, a few years ago, when Mr. 
Lane, in his work on Modern Egypt, testified to its success as practised 
in Egypt and Hindostan. That gentleman, having resolved to witness the 
performance of this species of Psycho-vision, the magician commenced 



• INTERIOR VISION. 47 

his operations by writing forms of invocation, to his familiar spirits, on 
six slips of paper; a chafing-dish, with some live charcoal in it, was then 
procured, and a boy summoned who had not yet reached the age of 
puberty. Mr. Lane inquired who were the persons that could see in the 
magic mirror, and was told that they were a boy not arrived at puberty, a 
virgin, a black female slave, and a pregnant woman. 

"To prevent any collusion between the sorcerer and the boy, Mr. Lane 
sent his servant to take the first boy he met. When all was prepared, the 
sorcerer threw some incense, and one of the strips of paper, into the 
chafing-dish. He then took hold of the boy's right hand, and drew a 
square, with some mystical marks, on the palm ; in the centre of the 
square he formed the magic mirror, and desired the boy to look steadily 
into it, without raising his head. In this mirror, the boy declared that he 
saw, successively, a man sweeping, seven men with flags, an army pitch- 
ing its tents, and the various officers of state attending on the Sultan. 

" The rest must be told by Mr. Lane himself. 'The sorcerer now ad- 
dressed himself to me, and asked me if I wished the boy to see any person 
who was absent or dead. I named Lord Nelson ; of whom the boy had 
evidently never heard, for it was with much difficulty that he pronounced 
the name after several trials. The magician desired the boy to say to the 
Sultan, "My master salutes thee, and desires thee to bring Lord Nelson. 
Bring him before my eyes, that I may see him speedily." The boy then 
said so, and almost immediately added: "A messenger has gone and 
brought back a man dressed in a black (or, rather, dark-blue) suit of 
European clothes ; the man has lost his left arm." He then paused for a 
moment or two, and, looking more intently and more closely into the 
mirror said, "No; he has not lost his left arm, but it is placed to his 
breast." This correction made his description more striking than it had 
been without it, since Lord Nelson generally had his empty sleeve 
attached to the breast of his coat. But it was the right arm that he had 
lost. Without saying that I suspected the boy had made a mistake, I 
asked the magician whether the objects appeared, in the mirror, as if 
actually before the eyes, or as if in a glass which makes the right appear 
left. He answered that they appeared as in a common mirror. This ren- 
dered the boy's description faultless. Though completely puzzled, I was 
somewhat disappointed with his performances, for they fell short of what 
he had accomplished, in many instances, in presence of certain of my 
friends and countrymen. On one of these occasions, an Englishman pres- 
ent ridiculed the performance, and said that nothing would satisfy him 
but a correct description of the appearance of his own father ; of whom 
he was sure no one of the company had any knowledge. The boy, accord- 
ingly, having called by name for the person alluded to, described a man. in 
a Frank dress, with his hand placed on his head ; wearing spectacles ; and 
with one foot on the ground and the other raised behind him, as if he were 
stepping down from a seat. The description was exactly true in every re- 



48 INTERIOR VISION. 

spect ; the peculiar position of the hand was occasioned by an almost con- 
stant headache, and that of the foot or leg, by a stiff knee, caused by a 
fall from a horse in hunting. On another occasion, Shakespeare was de- 
scribed with the most minute exactness both as to person and dress ; and 
I might add several other cases in which the same magician has excited 
astonishment in the sober minds of several Englishmen of my acquaint- 
ance.' So far, Mr. Lane, whose account may be compared with that 
given by Mr. Kinglake, the author of ' Eothen.' 

"It may be worth adding, that, in a recent case of hydromancy known 
to the writer, the boy could see better without the medium than with it ; 
though he could also see reflected images in a vessel of water. This fact 
may be admitted to prove that such images are reflected to the eye of the 
seer from his own mind and brain. How the brain becomes thus enchanted, 
or the eye disposed for vision, is another question. Certainly it is no 
proof that the recollected image, in the mind of the inquirer, is transferred 
to the seer, as proofs can be shown to the contrary. When we look 
closely into it, Nature seems woven over, almost, with a magical web, 
and forms of the marvellous are rife." . . . 

" Are there intelligent things, of which we know nothing, dealing with 
the world? Is all a wondrous mechanism, a perfect play of solids which 
proceeds unerringly, and of whose laws the scientific people are the only 
interpreters? Are there no such things as miracles? Is the progress of 
things never changed ? And, once out of the world, do the departed never 
return ? 

"Is all chance? Cannot the future ever be foreseen? Are all the 
strange matters told us mere fables or inventions? the forgery of the 
imaginative mind, or the self-belief of the deluded? 

" Whence came that fear which has always pervaded the world? How 
comes it that, in all times, spirits have been believed? Cannot history, 
cannot science, cannot common sense conjure this phantom of spiritual 
fear, until it really resolve into the real? Cannot the apparition be laid? 
Cannot we eject this terror of invisible thinking things — spectators of us 
— out of the world ? Nothing is really done until this be done, if it can 
ever be done. Man is absolutely not fairly in his world, until this other 
thing is out of it. 

"It cannot be done. And why? Because this fear lies buried in the 
truth of things. Man's interest lies quite the other way of believing it. 
This dread of the supernatural is the clog upon his boldness — the mistrust 
which spoils his plans — which interferes with his prosperity — which 
brings a cloud over the sunshine of his certainties. Man, then, is afflicted 
with this fearful mistrust, that, after all, perhaps, his life may be the 
1 dream,' and that unknown future (which is filled with those whom he 
knew) is the < waking.' Where have our friends gone ? Where shall toe 
go? Are there well-known faces about us, though we see them not? 
Are there silent feet amidst our loud feet? And is it possible to come 



INTERIOR VISION. 49 

suddenly upon these — ay, and to hear? Miracle, or flash, in the (con- 
trarily-struck) waves of spirit and body." . . . 

"Men secretly tremble. But they hide their fears under the supposed 
defiance and in the boastful jest. In company they are bold. Separately 
they reflect, 'in their own secret minds, that, after all, these things may be 
true. True from such and such confirmatory surmises of their own; true 
from, perhaps, some personal unaccountable experiences, or from the 
assurance of some friend whom they are disposed to believe. But only 
disposed to believe. Modern times reject the supernatural; are supposed 
to have no superstition. Superstition? When this modern time is full of 
superstition ! 

"But, unfortunately, man has restless curiosity; he loves real truth; 
he solicits that which he can finally depend upon. He would believe if he 
could. But the evidence of supernatural things is so evasive — so fantas- 
tic — so, in one word, unreliable, that he will hold by the ordinary scien- 
tific explanations. All mystery, he says, is that only partially known. 
When that which constitutes a thing is understood, man declares, the 
mystery ceases. He only finds nature. Unknown nature before — now 
known nature. 

"The faculty of wonder is a gift; by wonder we mean that highest ex- 
haustive knowledge of the things of this world, upon which to set up, or 
to construct, the machinery of converse with another. By the ladder of 
the several senses, we climb to the top platform, the general sense. In 
most men's minds this bridge of intelligence is not stretched. And this 
knowledge of the supernatural is rejected like precious gems to grasp 
which there are, literally, no hands. A compliant cowardice, and an 
ashamed, merely half-belief have pervaded writers who, really, ought to 
have known better — who believed while they denied." . . . 

" We feel a sensation of surprise and shame, that some writers who, out 
of the secret strength of their minds, and not out of its weakness, saw that 
there is more in that which is called superstition than meets the eye, 
should, because they hesitated and were afraid to deal with it seriously, 
condescend to disparage and to treat it with ridicule. Superstition is 
degrading; a sense of the supernatural is ennobling. Walter Scott — 
although from the constitution of his mind he could not fail to be a be- 
liever — has surmised and supposed, and apologized for, and toned into, 
commonplace and explained, until he has resolved all his wonders — we 
may say, stripped all his truths — into nothing. Will it never be seen that 
even truth — that is, our truth — maybe only plausible? Walter Scott's 
mind was not profound enough for a really deep sense of the Invisible. 
W e greatly doubt whether he had, or by nature could have, the true wise 
man's sense of the Great Unseen ; that which holds this world but as an 
island in it. Whether, indeed, he did not designedly deal with the mar- 
vellous, and chip and pare, amidst his superstitions, and trim all up with 
the instincts of a romancist, and the eye to a balance in his favor of the 



50 INTERIOR VISION". 

mere worldly man, is a fair suspicion. As a clear-headed, common-sense 
man, who in his good nature, and in his admiration of it, wanted to stand 
well with the world; as a man who thoroughly enjoyed his life, and pos- 
sessed an abundance of rich and marketable imagination, — as all this, Wal- 
ter Scott converted superstitions as into his stock in trade. We seriously 
mistrust whether, while believing, he did not — to please the world — still 
deny ; whether in his affected, and even pretendeclly laughing, disclaim- 
ers, he was not secretly bowing, all the time, before the very thing he 
thought it allowable to barter. This, if true, was disingenuous, if not 
something worse. 
--^j. " Nearly all the writers who have treated of the marvellous have done 
/ so in the disbelieving vein. It is the fashion to seem to sneer. All of this 
acting before the world comes from the too great love of it ; arises out of 
the fear of that which may be said of us. There prevails a too great com- 
pliance with convention ; too great a meeting of the universal prejudice. 
Men are too apologetic, even in their faiths. In the face of standards, few 
men have the boldness to be singular. Habit dictates our form of thought, 
as equally as it legalizes our dress. We dreadfully fear the world. 

"Other narrators and exponents of the supernatural — though aware 
of the always powerfully interesting material which they have at com- 
mand — instead of being imbued with the strong sense of the latent truth 
in them — may be said, indeed, almost with one consent — though longing 
to tell — to begin to parade a sort of shame at their revelations. And 
pray wherefore? They are already met more than half-way in every sen- 
sible man's mind. There are few families — nay, there is scarcely an 
individual — who has not had something naturally unexplainable in his 
history. The supernatural tale always finds an echo in every breast. 

"Now, if discredited by writers, the 'supernatural' should not be 
treated of by them. There are plenty of subjects at which they may play, 
but that — if they believe any life but their ordinary life — so serious one. 
If the possibility of the supernatural be believed, and its instances be 
accepted, they are bound, as candid men and honest men, to make the 
avowal that they believe. The explanations which are frequently offered 
of things appearing as supernatural, are greatly more difficult to credit 
than the extra-natural matters themselves. They are often infinitely 
clumsy. Somewhat roughly examined, they will continually fall to pieces 
of themselves. Of some unaccountable things, in fact, nobody credits the 
' explanations.' The uncomfortable fact is got rid of. The subject is dis- 
missed, to make way for the next soliciting object. The wonder is given 
up as unexplainable. And that is the whole process. This is a very easy, 
though not a very conclusive or satisfactory, method of disproving. We 
suppose we disbelieve." . . . 

"We are weary of the jargon whereby strange and unexplainable — 
possibly natural — doubtless natural — phenomena have been degraded. 
The history of all unknown things has been thus similar, that at the out- 



INTERIOR VISION. 51 

set, they have invariably been invested with the attributes of the magical. 
We must carefully guard ourselves from credulity. Such things as these 
presumed Spiritual Disclosures have been known in all ages. There is 
nothing newer, other than that they have been suddenly and widely 
noticed, in these psychologico-magnetic displays — this supposed spiritual 
betrayal — this counter-working and false working of the universal tran- 
sitive evolvement — these aberrations of polarity. We have an abiding 
dislike to, and we cordially dissent from, all this epileptic wandering; 
all this convulsive, incoherent, blameworthy — nay, audacious reaching 
out at forbidden things. The pampered human mind can run into any 
extreme. We, on the contrary, are friends to the solidest and plainest 
common sense. 

"We apprehend that the explanation of the great majority of the spirit- 
ual manifestations — as they are called — may be, that the forceful mag- 
net] sm with which the world is charged is (in states of excitement) im- 
pelled through the medium — probably the stronger through the reflective 
vacuity ; and that it undulates again outwards, as we see the rings, or 
rather the single ring, upon a sheet of water circumvolve from about a 
stone suddenly dropped in. The exterior, magnetic, unconscious rings 
may become intelligent, from which ' motived circles ' — obeying laws of 
which we know nothing, or from which invisible walls, come sounds — 
vibrates motion. It may be at the intersection of these ' out-of-sense ' 
circles (which, from the multitude of minds, must be innumerable, though 
they are altogether unsuspected) at which are struck all that strange 
attraction and repulsion which we call sympathy and antipathy, and in 
which are mind-commerce, and all the puzzling phenomena of the so-called 
spiritual shows. Thus the mind answers to itself. And instead of ' spirit' 
having much to do with it, it is mainly the invisible ' microscopical,' ' un- 
necessary work to the world' of man's own other nature; real spirit being 
in the majority of cases still as far off as ever, and outside and transcended 
of all of it ! All the grave gossip and delusion, therefore, of religious com- 
munication and of impartments (truly pieced out, in his wild imagina- 
tion, by the consultant's own convulsive ingenuity) of disembodied indi- 
vidualities, must fall to the ground. The phenomena are indisputable. 
What they are, the scientific world has yet to learn. We seem to fall, in 
these things, into a wide field of vital magnetism. And also into mind- 
contagion." . . . 

" To reduce the question into the narrowest limits — do spirits exist? 
Is there anything apart from the solid, the tangible, the senses of man, the 
bulk of nature? Can intelligences exist without a body? Is the world 
of soul within the world of flesh, or is the world of flesh within the world 
of spirit? Which is the real thing, the material or the immaterial? AH 
the speculation — all the purposes of life may be confined within these 
circumscribed bounds. Either this world is all, or it is almost, nothing. 
For if the senses are all of the man; if Nature is just the mere solids 



52 INTERIOR VISION. 

which she presents to us ; if the course of circumstances is fortuitous ; if 
we are, really, alone in the world; if nothing is believable — and therefore 
possible — but what is demonstrable ; if human reason is everything, and 
common sense the true guide and the only guide; why, then, — if all that 
the world tells us be really true, — the sooner we close the account with 
this outside phantom-world the better! In this case away with it! 
And away with all the spiritual tales which are told us ! The quicker tha.t 
we realize to ourselves the fact that all of the supernatural — though, 
possibly, amusing — is all of the untrue, the more conformable it will be 
to the comfortable exercising of ourselves. We are children otherwise. 
Why should we frighten ourselves with fairy tales ? Why bring over us 
this damp of the phantasmagoric view of life ? We must, surely, be as 
the rude and ignorant — as the very unlettered — in distressing ourselves 
conceruing this supposed outside watch of which fabulists have found it 
their interest to tell us. Surely, in this nineteenth century, when explora- 
tion has sifted the world, and science has exposed, however admirable, all 
the watchwork of it ; when superstitions have been, even from their last 
lurking-places, expelled, and when teaching has almost — we are com- 
pelled to use the significant word, almost — settled things, we can dismiss 
our belief in this old world-mistaken idea of the reappearance of the 
dead ; of anything which has ceased out of the world. We can get rid of 
the fear of the preternatural. In one word, supernaturalism is untrue, 
because nature is true. And because it has nothing of the supernatural in 
it. All the groping in the world cannot discover a thing that is not 
there." . . . 

" Science-men are kings in their own domain, which is the world of 
sense. But they are very untrustworthy guides out of it. They can 
domesticate us very satisfactorily in this world, and can, piece by piece, 
put the machinery of it into our hand. But they can never give us 
another. Nor will their glance ever arrest one invisible visitant from out 
another world ; nor will their sight ever penetrate, for a moment, past 
that shadowy curtain — which is yet, perhaps, penetrable — which divides 
the Seen from the Unseen. Let us give Science due honor ; but let us 
not render up to it our hopes of the future, as equally as all of us of the 
present." . . . 

" True magic lies in the most secret and inmost powers of the mind. 
Our spiritual nature is still, as it were, barred within us. All spiritual 
wonders, in the end, become but wonders of our own minds. 

"In magnetism lies the key to unlock the future science of magic, to 
fertilize the growing germs in cultivated fields of knowledge, and reveal 
the wonders of the creative mind. 

"Magic is a great, secret, sudden, and disbelieved-in wisdom (out of 
this world, and its opposite). Keason is a great, public, relied-on mis- 
take (in this world, and the same with it, in its, by man, accepted opera- 
tions). The one treads down, and destroys the world. The other springs 



INTERIOR VISION. 53 

with it, and makes it. Therefore is one the worldlily true and believed, 
since man makes himself in it, and grows, into his being, in it. And 
therefore is the other, in the world-judgment, false and a lie, and a juggle, 
since man is contradicted in it. So says Paracelsus." . . . 

"The crystal seers and mirror viewers use their talent in telling love- 
sick girls their fortunes, and," — tenscore more such things are said. 
What of it? God gave all men brains, but some put them to swindling 
uses. Are brains, per se, bad things to possess? Barbers use leaves of 
literature to wipe their razors on ; yet essays nor the art of printing had 
that end in view. Trunks are lined with sheets of the Bible, but the 
books were printed to fatten souls upon. " But all people can't success- 
fully use these crystals and mirrors ? " No one knows till they try. A 
gentleman of Cambridge left me ten minutes ago, who had stopped a 
little time, while floating down the river of life, at Spiritualists' Island, 
but grew tired of the fruit, — religious, social, philosophic, and so on, 
reputed to grow there; just as I did, and thousands more have, and still 
more thousands do and will ; and he owned a very valuable trinue glass. 
I doubt if America possesses a more splendid seer than that builder of 
brick houses and philosophical systems! Why? Because the glass en- 
abled him, by its magnetic fulness, to burst the bondage of a perverse 
brainism, and reach the streams that flow beneath the senses. That 
is all. 

In April, 1864, Horace H. Day, the famous financier and true philan- 
thropist, came to my house in Pleasant St., Boston. That morning I had 
been mirror-gazing, for pleasure's sake, and the doors of the inner worlds 
had not yet wholly closed ; and I distinctly foresaw, and told him, that in 
September the country would feel a monetary crash. Result, — the 
" gold panic " of that month, carrying ruin to thousands, and some to sud- 
den death by self- slaughter. I know one man who forecasts the markets 
by means of another trinue ; he deals in grain, and as the sheaf whicn appears 
in the glass rises or falls, so inevitably will the market. All he wants is 
capital to buy, or a sensible man to follow his magneto- commercial ba- 
rometer. He will soon have both. I know a woman who never fails to 
tell correctly all that others want to know. She is getting rich. But I 
deprecate this sort of thing ; it borders close upon a mere prostitution of 
a divine instrumentality; for, properly used, this agency is not only 
second to none other for intromissional and psycho- visional purposes, but 
is liable to not one single objection, which all others are. Drugs, fumes, 
odors, ethers, mesmerism, all, and each of them, disturb the nervous 
system, injure the brain, and their effects are all unhealthy and ab- 
normal; but the mirror is free from all that, and the things, persons, 
events, and symbols seen, are actual, almost tactual, — as clear, plain 
and distinct as any other plano-cliorama, resembling the effects of the 
camera obscura, and no abnormal state is induced ; for the seer is wide 
awake, broadly intelligent, in possession of every sense, in all its in- 



54 INTERIOR VISION. 

tegrity and watchfulness ; while at the same time there is no strain what- 
ever upon the brain ; no tension of the nerves. In mesmeric lucidity, 
the visions rapidly pass away; never again can they be reproduced or 
recalled ; but, in the mirror, any given face, place, picture of any locality, 
or symbolism, can, by an effort of the will, be made to remain fixed, sta- 
tionary, and solid, as long as the seer shall elect; besides which, an infi- 
nitely greater percentage of persons can successfully use them than can 
be effected by any or all combined of the above-specified agencies. There 
are also many diverse drugs, and mesmeric modes ; but there are only two 
sorts of magic mirrors in existence, — the crystalline, which are but of 
little use, and of which the polished coal is a sample ; besides being ex- 
ceedingly difficult to obtain, seeing that only coal of a peculiar shade and 
grain will answer the purpose ; and even then is utterly useless unless of 
a size, without crack, difference, solidity or flaw, sufficient to be correctly 
ground, shaped, and polished; for the whole thing depends upon the 
power of the mirror to attract, and retain upon its surface, the magnetic 
fluid thrown from the eyes ; on which magnetic surface in all cases the 
things seen appear, and not upon or in the surface or substance of the 
mirror itself, as is apparently the case; but mostly above and in front of 
it. Sometimes, indeed, the seer sees through the mirror, which, in that case, 
serves precisely the same ends and uses to the spirit of the out-looker, that 
the eye-pieces and object-glasses do to the external senses of thetelescopist 
and microseopical investigator. In mesmeric vision there is a necessary 
and unget-rid-of-able rapport and magnetic sympathy between the opera- 
tor and the subject, which latter is, therefore, quite as likely to give forth 
the pictures, images, memories, and fancies of the former, as he or she is 
to reveal the actual truth of and from the outside world. "But spirit- 
ual or spirits' magnetisms are not so likely to intrude fantasies ; and, 
therefore, what a medium sees must be true and real." To which I reply, 
— the objections against human magnetism are tenfold stronger against 
the spiritual, or the spirits, so-called, even when it is real and true, which 
it is not, over once in at least two hundred times ; for beyond all cavil, 
what passes for spiritual trance is, in the vast majority of cases, either sim- 
ulated, delusive, the effect of mental habit, the effect of the physico- 
mental influence of the parties present, or the result of a diseased con- 
dition of the nerves and brain. But suppose, for argument's sake, a real 
and bona fide case of spiritual magnetism. How is the medium or by- 
stander to know whether the thing seen is a real photograph of the un- 
seen by mortals, or a transcript from the playful fancy of a disembodied 
wag or experimenter ? The medium cannot tell, because the very term 
and service both indicate a person played upon, — an instrument actual in 
unseen hands ; a machine worked by unknown forces, — a mere automaton, 
made to move, do, act and say, at the will of a power of which neither 
they or the bystanders know literally anything whatsoever ! There is no 
standard of comparison. The medium is a nobody in the matter, while 



INTEKIOR VISION. 55 

the invisible, and necessarily totally unknown, operator, is all in all ! The 
difference, therefore, between positive seership and mediumship in any 
form is the difference of a whole species ; or that between hearing a de- 
scription of Paris, and seeing Paris one's self; that is to say, it is the differ- 
ence between act and experience, and the merest hearsay. These opin- 
ions are based upon over twenty years' experience and observation of both 
classes of phenomena. , 

The second class or order of mirrors (the first embracing all the 
coals, light-colored metallic mirrors, and crystals, none of which are of 
much worth, as compared with the perfected instrument of the last cen- 
tury, and the present) are those made upon strictly scientific principles 
as to form, in the first place. After innumerable experiments, it was 
found that upon removing the skull, and slicing the brain of dead human 
beings horizontally, just above the ear, that all heads of all the human 
races were shaped precisely alike, and that all differences of external con- 
tour depended upon the volume of matter on the periphery or outside 
surface of the brain, — the cortical matter. It was found, also, that the 
brain, at that foundation-point, was of the same general form or shape 
as the earth on which we dwell ; that is to say, an oblate spheroid, 
whence, by experiment, it was deduced that such section of a figure, ob- 
lately spheroidal, was also the very best possible form of a magic mirror. 
Such a figure having two mathematically true and absolutely certain foci, 
so that a stream of magnetism being thrown upon one focus slid along 
the surface and returned to the centre of the other focus, from the centre 
of the fore-brain, thus completing a magnetic circuit, and rendering the 
portion of brain in the line of contact exceedingly active, by reason of 
its increased magnetic play and motion of the brain-particles there 
situate. So much for the shape. But experiment also demonstrated that 
something else was wanted beside the peculiar outline ; for if the fluid 
impinged upon a perfectly plane surface, it would bound back, and the re- 
sult of its action would be merely the magnetization of the organs in the 
fore-brain ; beside which, much of the fluid would penetrate the surface, 
and be lost in space. Then a long series of experiments were instituted 
by different master-chemists, of different scientific lodges, in various 
parts of the world, to find a substance which would prevent the escape 
of the refined vif, — this extremely subtle, magnetic fluid, — as the sides of 
a tub prevent the escape of water. Hence, an alteration in the surface- 
form of the mirror became requisite, nay, wholly indispensable. A point 
of the very first importance before the application of the proposed in- 
sulating material, even if such should be discovered ; which, for a long 
period of time seemed problematical. 

If the convex form was used, the fluid — even supposing the retentive 
material was applied — would roll off, like a soap-bubble from a pipe- 
bowl. If it was convex, the mass of the invisible globe of magnetic aura 
would roll off at the ends and sides, and hang in a mass beneath the 



56 INTERIOR VISION. 

mirror, which of course would never do. And now months were spent in 
that particular research, until at last a concave was adopted for the glass 
itself; a thin film of gold was placed close to it on the edge of a pecu- 
liarly constructed compound concavo-convex frame, made in con- 
formity with the known laws governing the motion of rare fluids, ethers, 
and gaseous bodies. 

The next step was to find an insulating substance, and one having elec- 
tive, electric and chemical and magnetic affinity to and with the finest 
form of magnetism known to science and to human experience. It had 
already been demonstrated that what would insulate and hold electricity 
was but an open sieve to that same element in its higher forms and modes ; 
hence, recourse must be had to something else. And so experiments were 
made, separate and combined, with the alkaline metals, Lithium, Sodium, 
Potassium, and the hypothetical substance, Ammonium, but without com- 
plete success. Then came the metals of the alkaline earths, — Magnesium, 
Calcium, Barium, and Strontium, but without avail. Then experiments 
were made with the proper earths, — Didymium, Cerium, Lanthanum, 
Zirconium, Norium, Erbium, Beryllium, Thorium, Yttrium, Terbium, and 
Aluminum; but still the proper thing was not found. Attention and trial 
was next turned to the oxidable metals proper, whose oxides form pow- 
erful bases, and these are Copper, Uranium, Lead, Cobalt, Zinc, Cadmi- 
um, Nickel, Bismuth, Iron, Chromium, and Manganese; but you might as 
well try to hold sunlight in a basket, as to confine magnetism within walls 
made of any, or any combinations of these metals. Therefore the next 
series of tests embraced the oxidable metals proper, whose oxides form 
weak bases, or acids, namely, Arsenic, Tin, Vandium, Osmium, Niobium, 
Antimony, Titanium, Molybdenum, Tetherium, Tantalum, and Tungs- 
ten : a nearer approach, but still not the thing required, albeit much 
time, a deal of money, and more patience, had been expended. Then 
came the noble metals, whose oxides are reducible by heat, namely, 
Ehodium, Kuthenium, Silver, Platinum, Iridium, Mercury, Palladium, and 
Gold. Of course the isomorphous groups of substances, embracing 
Sulphur, Selenium, Chlorine, Cyanogen, Phosphorus, Fluorine, Iodine 
and Bromine, were also called into play, and a few of them, as some of the 
others, were found partially, but not wholly, applicable to the purpose 
sought to be attained, not even by the aid of others of the non-metallic 
elements, viz., Oxygen, Nitrogen, Carbon, Boron, Hydrogen, and Silicon, 
albeit it was found that fusible combinations of fifteen of these score or 
two of substances, associated with Phthalic acid and Paranapthalene, con- 
stituted just the thing required, namely, a compound with strong elective 
and electric characteristics, presenting a perfectly even, white-black sur- 
face, and sensitive in the highest possible degree. Of course this sub- 
stance is very difficult to make, and well it is that such is the case, else 
the land would be flooded with counterfeit or very imperfectly constructed 
mirrors. As it is, it is impossible to make them properly in this country, 



INTERIOR VISION. 57 

and only one man ever imports them, and that man is Cuilna Vilmara, 
from whose lips I am now reporting, in as plain English as I can com- 
mand, this exhaustive monograph upon a very difficult subject — for it is 
not easy to correctly catch the meaning of a man whose speech is part 
English, French, German, Italian, Armenian, and Arabic, and yet by cliut 
of great patience, chemical information, two linguists, and half-a-dozen 
lexicons, I have succeeded in getting the pith and marrow of all he had' 
to say, as himself agreed was the case when reading the French transla- 
tion. Hence, it will be understood that I herewith give the views of this 
great master of the subject, as well as, and interspersed with, my own and 
others' beliefs and knowledges of the matters under consideration. 

The man whose experiences are wholly confined to things of the prac- 
tical every-day life, is a mere shell, floating on the sea, totally ignorant of 
the amazing wealths lying scattered beneath the surface, and piled up in 
mountains on the ocean floors ; for there's more real worlds under this 
outside life of ours, than human brain can number. Bream-life, so won- 
derful, vivid, oftentimes strangely prophetic, is but one of these; and 
there is a real state even behind that life of Dreams ; and we reach its 
mystic borders by the mesmeric roads, while we gaze into its very depths 
by the mysterious lens I am here writing about. There is no accident, 
no chance, only such seem to be to our outer senses; but when the veil- 
pall that hangs over the inner senses is removed, we at once glance down 
the mystic lanes, and are in the street of chances ; hence the future as the 
present — and the past is a fact, and all their events are now ! Wherefore 
it is not difficult to foretell what shall be, if we but get beneath the veil 
and glance along the floors of the world. God's numbers never change. 
They are perpetual Fixedness, — scannable by whoever has the sciences ! 

Sir David Brewster, albeit he attempts to pervert the account to other 
ends, says that, "It can scarcely be doubted that a concave mirror was 
the principal instrument by which the heathen gods (disembodied heroes) 
were made to appear in the ancient temples, . . . Esculapius often 
exhibited himself to his worshippers of Tarsus ; and the temple of Engui- 
num, in Sicily, was celebrated as the place where the goddesses (disem- 
bodied heroines) exhibited themselves to mortals." Iamblichus informs 
us that the ancient magicians caused the gocls to appear among the vapors 
disengaged from fire ; and the conjurer, Maximus, terrified his audience 
by making the statue of Hecate laugh. Damascius, quoted, in a bad 
cause by Salverte, says, In a manifestation (the cause of which, that is, 
a magic mirror, ought not to be revealed), . . . there appeared on 
the wall of the temple a mass of light which at first seemed to be very 
remote; it transformed itself, in coming nearer, into a face evidently divine 
and supernatural, of a severe aspect, but mixed with gentleuess, and ex- 
tremely beautiful. According to the institutions of a mysterious religion 
the Alexandrians honored it as Osiris and Adonis. 



58 INTERIOR VISION. 

The Emperor Basil, of Macedonia, inconsolable at the loss of his son, 
went to Theodore Santabaron, celebrated for his miracles, who exhibited 
to him the image of his beloved son, magnificently dressed, and mounted 
upon a superb charger. The youth rushed toward his father, threw him- 
self into his arms and — disappeared ! This aerial image was no trick, for 
even now optics cannot do anything of the sort ; but it unquestionably was 
produced in, or by, and through, a magic mirror. The plea in this case, 
of imposture, is absurd. 

Mr. Eoscoe, in his life of Benvenuto Cellini, gives a thrilling account of 
that famous artist's adventure with spectres raised by magical means, and, 
what is more to the purpose, neither Roscoe, Brewster, or Smith, pretend 
to claim that they, the spectres, were mere figments of fancy. On the 
contrary, all three admit the thing was real I True, they attempt to stave 
off the supernatural conclusion; but do it very lamely indeed, for it is pre- 
tended by them that the magic lantern, playing upon volumes of smoke, 
accounts for the whole terrific affair, totally forgetful of the fact that 
Cellini's experience took place in the middle of the sixteenth century, 
whereas Kircher did not invent that instrument till a hundred years later ! 
The paragraph in italics on page 154, of Smith's edition of "Brewster's 
Magic," is too puerile and contemptible to merit notice. Such hard-headed 
people would fain make us believe that all ghostly appearances are phas- 
mas — even that of Jesus after his death; and that all that's knowable 
they know; when, aside from the multitudinous impostures, there are 
enough real spiritual visitations and visions to base the hopes of a million 
worlds upon. In no case, whether the objects viewed are physical or 
mental — as in dreams, etc., is it the eye which sees, but the faculty of con- 
sciousness within the eye, brain, soul, of the observer; and as man is a 
spiritual being, it follows that he has a series of inner senses underlying 
and subtending' his external ones, and which series of internal senses are 
adapted to his natural-born spiritual nature ; and all that he requires is a 
bridge to help him span the thick matter and reach the spiritual ether. 
This the mirror enables many, though not all, to do. 

The condition of death is mental activity and physical quiescence. If 
the activity can be had without the quiescence of death, our greatest aim — 
a new avenue or means of knowing — is attained. This is all the mes- 
merist and the mirrorist claim to achieve ; and both have proved and 
made good that claim in numberless instances. 

The spiritual, therefore the substantial reality of all being, is above and 
beyond the other senses, and it is only either by his rising to it, through 
the floors of the outer world beneath which he sinks, or by its descent to 
him, that he can cognize the actualities of that superior world. In 
either case, if his motive be good, he ascends toward God. If evil, then 
his account must be rendered for his act. 

When a man, his organs of perception, his intelligent principle, is sus- 
pended from its matter-bounded exercise ; he can enter the domain of the 



INTERIOR VISION. 59 

real, through the gates, of the inner senses; catch glimpses of the for- 
ward world, and therefore cognize the events not yet born of time, but 
which are already begotten of God on the body of Necessity ; and, there- 
fore, cannot fail of actual outside show, experience, and being. In the 
interior state he throws open the windows of his soul, and lets in the 
sunshine and glory of the spaces ; hence all true seers can but deprecate 
the prostitution of Clairvoyance — true, and therefore very rare — to im- 
moral uses ; or that of the mirrors to mere fortune-telling, acid such like 
ends ; for, although unquestionably these things have been, are, and can 
be done, with rare and marvellous success and efficiency by their means, 
yet it is like causing a first-class race-horse to draw a butcher's cart, or, 
donning rich attire to plough the land. Hence the caution and advice, 
simply because the mirror is the gate to another world, another field, 
another department of the " Inside World." 

Says one of the master Rosicrucians of fingland, — a man whose writings 
on " Fire " rank him high among the true genii of the world of letters, 
and one from whom I have largely quoted in this monograph, — a man who 
deservedly occupies a lofty place in the esteem and affection of every 
true brother of the Arch Fraternity of Rosicrucians, — in his last great 
work concerning the "Curious Things of the Outside World": "The 
Phantasmagoria of real things are revealed to us only when we escape 
the outer world." In other words, when we elude by mental swiftness 
these cast-iron, outward-seeming senses of ours ; and when we take a 
God-bath in the rivers that flow by our souls. There is a light of slum- 
brous beauty beneath this world-light of ours, and the spaces are thronged 
with aerial intelligences, unseen by material man. They, to him, wait in 
darkness, but his darkness is theirs and " our " effulgent light, because it 
illumines the waste of what to him is mystery. That realm is no shadow- 
country, no phantom-land. It is a country without sound and noise ; yet 
the fulness of melody echoes through its gorgeous halls, and the wing- 
less cherubim are there in effulgent majesty, to guard its mystic splen- 
dors ; hence, none but true, brave, feeling souls can wholly enter therein. 
It is a regal domain where our under life is topmost. Gautama Buddha, 
seer of all seers of the olden time, and equalled only now, if ever, tried, 
to stupid man, these sublime mysteries to reveal ; and in that land he has 
waited six thousand years for the advent of understanders, just as that 
other king, the lonely Man of Nazareth and Bethlehem, waited nineteen 
hundred years to find a score of Christians ! Are they found? 

It is only in deep absorption that the soul can outwit the body. Thus, 
when a man is tempted to waste his manhood in the lap of lust, his 
senses ever urge him to the deed, albeit he knows it is pollution and 
death which invite him to the horrid banquet, death-charged and dread- 
ful! But the very instant he sets his soul to gaze upon the temptress, he 
sees her hollow heart, and realizes the danger to his soul and body ; and 
the sight and the knowledge frees him, that moment, from his thrall; his 



60 INTERIOR VISION. 

boilmg blood cools ; recedes back to its proper channels ; his tempestuous 
passion subsides, and, though weak and exhausted, he still remains a 
man! which is never the case when lust extinguishes its fires in the arms 
of wanton passion. Lo, here, what a truth ! 

[Note. — For an amplification of this thought, see "Love and its. Hidden Mystery." 
Its sequel, " The Master Passion; or, The Curtain Raised." And their antecedent, 
"After Death; or, Disembodied Man." Also " The Rosicrucian's Story."] 

As in the telescope the landscape only is possible, not at either end 
among the mistakes of the unadjusted glasses, but in the exact focus, 
where the sight-point is caught, even so we (Rosicrucians) hold that 
supernatural beings only are possible ; visible at that cross-point where 
the angelic contraction and the magic dilatation intersect. In short, man 
being himself as the telescope, it is only at the magico-magnetic focus at 
which the spirit world and tlje essential worlds are to be spied into. 
Under the dominion of lust, hatred, avarice, wrong, no man can enter 
either ! Therefore virtue is its own reward ! Divine and supernatural 
illumination is the only road to absolute truth. 

The Platonic philosophy of vision is, that it is the view of objects 
really existing in interior light, which assume form ; not according to ar- 
bitrary laws, but according to the state of the mind. This light unites 
with exterior light in the eye, and is thus drawn into a sensuous or imag- 
inative activity ; but, when the outward light is separated, it reposes in 
its own serene atmosphere. It is, then, in this state of interior repose 
that all really inspired and correct visions occur. It is the same light so 
often spoken of in ancient books and modern experiences. It is the light 
revealed to Pimander, Zoroaster, and the sages of the East. ■ It is Boeh- 
men's Divine Vision or Contemplation; Molinos' Spiritual Guide, and 
the inner life of all true men — few, — and women — many. ^It is the 
foundation-fire upon which all things whatever are builded; am- 
bushed everywhere; bursting out when least expected; slumbering for 
ages, yet suddenly illuminating an inebriate's brain, so that he shall see 
the moral snakes and larvae of his perversion assume physical propor-" 
tion and magnitude to fright him back to temperance, virtue, and his 
forsaken God ! ' 

No amount of merely intellectual quickness, sharpness, or solidity will 
avail the searcher for the unseen ! A meek spirit, attention, persever- 
ance, faith open only the doors which lead to the vastitudes. 

The world we live in is full of the pattering of ghostly feet, and the 
music of spiritual singers. It is not difficult to hear them. I may not 
here write concerning the methods of invocation, because fools will 
laugh, and the fraternity of the mystical, everywhere, would grieve 
thereat ; and yet it is certain that perfumes, odors, and vapors of mag- 
netic character have, in ages past, and may again and in ages yet to be, 
proved immense aids to the true seer. There are hundreds who visited the 



INTERIOR VISION. 61 

"Rosicrucian Rooms" in Boylston St., Boston, who marvelled greatly at 
hearing no raps or ticks, and seeing no clouds pass over the splendid 
mirror there owned and used, until perfumes were scattered and incense 
burned, — whereupon, thousands of patterings rained upon the silver tri- 
pod, and glory-clouds, in presence of and seen by scores, floated over the 
black-sea face of the peerless mirror. 

The belief of the supernatural is the only escape out of the coldest in- 
fidelity ; and the word magic every where is but another term for mag- 
netic, which, being understood, at once removes all its mysteries from 
the region of the " Black Arts," so-called, into the beautiful realms of 
ethereal science. 

Not every person can see in a mirror of any sort whatever ; and hun- 
dreds of those who can see in them are unable to procure a genuine in- 
strument. To such I recommend a very cheap and beautiful substitute, 
in the form of a concaved Claude Lorraine mirror, easily made, — mould 
a lump of clay a foot square, slightly convex. Dry, and bake it hard, and 
smooth its surface as perfectly as possible. Then press pasteboard on 
it till all is smooth and even. Now make another exactly to match it, 
concave. Between these two place a sheet of fine plate-glass. Bake till 
it conforms to the required shape. Make two alike. Between these two, 
cemented one-fourth inch apart, pour black ink till full ; seal the aper- 
ture left for that purpose, and you have a very good substitute for a mag- 
netic mirror. Else take a glass saucer filled half full of black ink, and you 
will have as good a mirror as Lane saw so successfully worked in Egypt. 
A crystal glass of pure water has often served a good purpose to the 
same end ; and, in fact, there are numberless forms of substitutes for the 
genuine mirror, some of which are very good, but of course not equal to 
even an ordinary trinue glass. The rules and laws governing these sub- 
stitutes are precisely the same as those of genuine glasses. 

"It will never do to urge that these things lie beyond us. A fruitful 
source of the spiritual lowness of the modern time is the resolute avert- 
ing of the face from deep thoughts, which, of course, give trouble. That 
all the lifting of the mind, that all the sublimest speculation, that all the 
occupancy of the thoughts by these intensely noble and refining investiga- 
tions; that all these high ideas, and great ideas, about God's providence, 
and his purposes in the world, end, when pushed to answer, just where they 
began — that is, where they first opened, and in no wise attaining to definite 
result — this is, of course, as true as that men cannot help their specula- 
tions and their wonder. But we unconsciously pass higher, and become 
something better, in such thoughts. We teach ourselves to place the world 
at a distance. We grow spiritualized ; and the very amount of our pleasures 
multiplies, because it purifies. The fault of the 'time is haste — is conceit 
— is a wilful disregard of the higher truths — is a protesting speed to be 
back again amidst the business of the world — a cowardly acknowledg- 
ment of incapacity to cope with the contemplation of man's possible 



62 INTERIOE VISION. 

higher destiny — a hypocritical putting-forward of reliance upon, and 
acknowledgment of, a beneficent superintending Providence in the 
abstract. The time is so unenthusiastic, everything is so questioned for 
its utilities, and all is so toned clown to commonplace, that it is the voice 
of exclamation and alarm only that can arouse. To obtain a hearing we 
must call aloud. 

" We are involving ourselves in too many deductions. We are thicken- 
ing ourselves in our mechanic dreams too much. We are posing ourselves 
with systems. We are living the heart out of us. We are making very 
clockwork of the grand intensities of nature. Formalism is becoming as 
a second nature to us, and our method of living is the translation of the 
life-long charities into pounds and pence. Even our very fine cases — as 
we may so, perhaps, too ' curiously ' figure it — are growing vastly too 
fine, vastly too wonderful, and too elaborately wrought for us. Why not 
be of rougher material, and of mere painted outside — of bulk and not 
sentiment — of the coarse, solid components — of wood and of varnish — 
instead of making up of such exquisite vermilion blood, and of flesh of a 
marble-like whiteness in the female examples of us ? There be something 
in superb colors, look you ! Why, when we are so laboriously casting 
ourselves as into ingots for the devil's golden Hades, should we make all 
this hypocritical fuss about moral improvement ? Surely we might as well 
become stumps — blocks — turn into dead, hard wood, as mean and un- 
handsome as Lapland idols, when all our foolish pity, and all our human 
sympathies, are being most convincingly argued and demonstrated out of 
us; and when the very affections are strangled — oh, think me not too 
direct and plain-spoken, my dear, contented, but, perhaps, too compliant 
reader — like irregular children; those which are only sure to bring their 
parents into discredit. Children of no town, since they belong not to a 
town, where money abounds ! Owning no love, since they cannot claim 
affinity with the love of bank-notes ! 

"We have forgotten the inside of the cup in the burnishing of the 
exterior. Nor — after all — do we live half our life. Our triumph in the 
common conveniences of life — spite of our vaunting of our perfection in 
them — go not great lengths. We can forge an anchor. But we cannot 
cook a dinner. We can spin thousands of yards of calico in two or three 
revolutions of a wheel. But we, personally, curve so indifferently, that 
we can scarcely make a bow. The banks groan with our gold. And yet 
we have not the knowledge profitably — by which we here mean towards 
our soul's advantage — to expend a single dollar. In this universal Plutus- 
conversion, our heads — so to speak — are growing into gold, while our 
hearts are fast becoming but as the merest blown paper-bag inside of us ! 

" Is this Dutchlike life of toys and trifles right? Is this all of nature; 
and all of us? Oh, this wilderness of flowers, and, oh, the eternal forests I 
Let the mind, for a moment, glance at that inexpressible microcosm — far 
from the vulgar disturbances of the pavements, and out of sight of the 



INTERIOR VISION 63 

glare of the city — in which are the thin, spiry stalks, in whose invisibly 
minute veins course up the bright-green blood. What a neglected treasury 
is this world of ours, in which lie undreamed-of riches for the seeking ! 
Why abandon them all — desireless — to the inviting angels? who stand 
sentinels upon a Paradise upon which we might enter ! Oh, those count- 
less diversities, and forever sumless beauties of nature! Oh — stretching 
above us — all ye vast fields ! Blue as the very ultimate floor of divinity ; 
throbbing with worlds, as through the intensity of an all-exultant, all even 
violently God-declarant life ! Oh, all ye thousand visible wonders, that 
scatter spells, as of the fruitful magic, through all this most invisibly 
populous universe; this universe, whether of man's mind or of the larger 
macrocosm! Pronounce, ye that know, whether evil, meanness, or 
wresting to false purpose — whether aught of bad — should profane a 
theatre of grandeur so immense? Is not man himself — who ought to be 
the arch-glory, as the recognition of it — but as he would seem so desirous 
of making himself — the blot upon this excellence, the lie to all this over- 
powering sublimity? Is he not, himself (to speak to him the language 
which he may best understand), the bankrupt in this myriad of banks, 
whence thought can — and virtue might — draw their inexhaustible sup- 
plies? 

" Were gold-ribs the very framework of the world, and were they torn 
out of their mighty sockets ; were even the Genius of its Riches shown, 
barless and central, throned at the very heart of this so detestably, because 
so for its material glory, worshipped globe — would the sight (or the pos- 
session) match against thine immortal chance ? Were the spirit of the 
material world exposed, in a single revelation, in all his blasting splen- 
dors, would — O thou miserably merchandising heart! thou seller of thy 
seat amidst the star-girt saints ! thou wretched contemner of the chance 
offered thee, for thy salvation, by thy God! — would all this compensate 
for the averting, for one moment, from thee, of the face of the rulers of 
thine immortal destinies? Confess, thou mad and besotted man!— - 
avouch, thou less defiant than hypocritical rebel to God's heavenly care of 
thee ! — would thy very hugest heap of dross match in value with the 
tiniest flower, into whose thirsty cup the heaven-missioned spirit poured 
his eternal clew ? Christening to immortality ! 

" Boastest thou of thy world, and of thy dignity — in thy science — out 
of it? Art ! — what is art to the reticulation of a fungus ? What is it to 
the fine-spun tracery of the meanest moss? Labor — what is thy labor, 
that thou shoulclst pride thyself upon it — when the whole frame of stars 
be nightly moved? Pride — why, what a shallow thing is this pride, when 
to the lily of the field even Solomon, in all his glory, has been declared not 
equal! What be thy stars and ribbons — thy rings and spots — when, 
than all, the snake hath more splendid? What be thy braveries, and all 
thine ingenious adornment, when the summer insect — less than thee the 
'painted child of dirt ' — surpasseth thee at them? What be thy money, 



64 INTERIOR VISION. 

when, with whatever assurance thou reliest upon it, it may not spot for 
thee, as gold nails, thy final melancholy, and, for thy body, long-lasting 
house? Hoarder for that day of enjoyment which shall Dever come to 
thee, in thy last earthly house, all thy tenfold fences of precious metal 
useless, art thou content to put-up with most ignoble lead! Thou leavest 
all thy wealth, all ' thy goods and chattels,' and, for aught thou knowest, 
thou forfeitest thy very soul ; and at that, perhaps, terribly sudden sum- 
mons, thou stand'st not even solitary ! For is there not thy misspent life 
thee to confront? Thou hast bargained away thine heritage, and hast 
spent the price. And, now, as that as which to be it hath been thy great- 
est boast — a good ' man of business ' — thou must, in rendering up thy- 
self, perform thine own half of the obligations. If the real law be that 
life to come be alone purchasable by good deeds — as any lawyer will tell 
thee, friend, if thou consultest him — thou hast miscalculated the law. 
In thine own interest's sake, then, better a single virtuous act than a 
reiteration of money victories ! Better, for thee, the prayer of the poor 
man, and the blessings of the fatherless and of the widow, than a whole 
shipload of plate, an avenue of bowing menials, and a whole court of 
flatterers ! Remember that the reckoning, with thee, must come. Disen- 
cumber yourself in time. Perhaps the very ' conveyances of thy lands ' 
may not be contained in that box, in which there will be found, at last, 
but too much room for the possessor himself! 

" Art thou wise — even in this world's sense ? Art thou sagacious as to 
the relative meanings of ' debtor and creditor ' ? When all the world at- 
testeth that these things which I have written concerning inner worlds 
and the methods of admission thereto, are true, shalt thou, then, perse- 
vere in so hopeless a chase of phantoms — of fine false things which flee 
from thee ? Shalt thou, with this knowledge, strain for an imagined good, 
which, even in thine own hand, meltcth? Shalt thou, with all these 
results which experience avoucheth as imminent, still sleep the sleep of 
fools? Still, with no alarm, fold the accustomed hands, and acquiesce 
because we see all the world doing so likewise? Shalt thou waste thy 
precious hours in the pursuit of those anticipated fine things, which, for 
all thy knowledge to the contrary, are to prove as daggers to thee ? If 
missing thee, perhaps to prove nets to the feet to trip up, or pits of selfish- 
ness, or of mistake, into which they shall fall, to those to whom thou 
leavest thine accumulation ! That for which thou canst have no farther 
use, keep it as tenaciously as thou mightest want ! Those that thou fan- 
ciest best beloved, may but inherit direct ruin in heiring thy riches. 
That which might have been as a gold mosaic pavement for thee to walk 
over in thy lifetime, may, in the sinking under thee in thy final disappear- 
ance out of this slippery world, convert as into a devil-trap to thy chil- 
dren ! 

"Love not money, then, other than 'wisely;' and not 'too well.' 
Grow back into the simplicity of thy childhood. Time hastens from thee. 



INTERIOR VISION. 65 

Thou, really, hast not that half century which thou proposest to live. 
Live at once ; in leading- a new life. Prate not in thy vanity, but get thy- 
self to thy knees, thou foolish man! And confess thyself a very child — 
ay, more than a child — in the true wisdom. Recall thy mind to better 
things than thy wretched traffic, in which by far too much thou imitatcst 
the muckworm. Make much of the holy affections which, like flowers, 
heaven hath planted in the mind of thee (if thou, like an ox, wouklst not 
tread them so daily out with thy brutish feet) ; and of thy children. 
Each of thine innocent little children contradicteth thee. Thine own 
youth is that which the most completely exposeth thy false policy. Think 
that thou hast but the poorest portion of life in thy present life. Thy 
widest margin of profit, and thy very mound of bonds and of bank-notes, 
alike shall prove but clogs — ay, but as tons of dead weight — in the hour 
when unexpected affliction shall start up before thee, or in that time that 
thou hast thy real summons out of this world. Chains are wealth — ay, 
chains of heaviest link; hell-forged, but self-wound in one's unconscious- 
ness of acquisition — of which, for its escape, in the last hour the angels 
have, perhaps, to free the struggling soul ! The blessings of the orphan 
and of the widow — of the lately down- trodden, of but the now rescued 

— shall be the wings upon which, in triumph out of thy clay, shalt thou 
mount to the face of God! Then to thy heart shall penetrate, and to thine 
ears shall reach, that blessed assurance, welcoming thee within the doors 
of the eternal places : ' Even as thou didst it to the meanest of these 
thine earthly brethren, hast thou done it unto me ! ' 

''The roads of heaven, out of this mere, miserable, transitory man's 
world — this world of disputes and difficulties, of the struggle, and of the 
eagerness, to live, but of the compelled and confused haste when death 
arrests — this place of weariness and discomfort, of — in the real reasons 
of things — very frequently, the high-placed low, and of the lowly-placed 
high — the ways, leading beyond those clouds of heaven towards which 
thou gazest, thou longing man ! have not those solid barriers of division, 
between body and spirit, which thou, sometimes, art taught to believe! 
Look out into the universe — important as thou thinkest thine own globe 

— and imagine what innumerable ' mansions ' thy ' Father's house ' hath ! 
By how many ways may the hope (which may be all of thee) travel into 
the celestial spaces! By how many natural and ethereal wickets the 
blessed may, according to their natures, enter! Are not the stars as 
bright doors, opening into the glory? 

" ' God called up from dreams a man into the vestibule of heaven, say- 
ing, " Come thou hither, and see the glory of my house." And to the 
servants that stood around his throne he said, " Take him and undress 
him from his robes of flesh ; cleanse his vision, and put a new breath into 
his nostrils ; arm him with sail-broad wings for flight. Only touch not 
with any change his human heart —the heart that weeps and trembles." 

" ' It was done ; and, with a mighty angel for his guide, the man stood 



66 INTEKIOB VISION. 

ready for Ms infinite voyage; and from the terraces of heaven, without 
sound or farewell, at once they wheeled away into endless space. Some- 
times with the solemn flight of angel-wing they fled through Zaarrahs of 
darkness, through wildernesses of death, that divided the worlds of life; 
sometimes they swept over frontiers, that were quickening, under pro- 
phetic motions, towards a life not yet realized. Then, from a distance 
that is counted only in heaven, light dawned, for a time, through a sleepy 
film. By unutterable pace the light swept to them, they by unutterable 
pace to the light. In a moment the rushing of planets was upon them ; in 
a moment the blazing of suns was around them. Then came eternities of 
twilight, that revealed, but were not revealed. To the right hand and to 
the leffc towered mighty constellations, that by self-repetitions and by 
answers from afar, that by counter-positions, that by mysterious combi- 
nations, built up triumphal gates, whose architraves, whose archways — 
horizontal, upright — rested, rose — at altitudes, by spans, that seemed 
ghostly from infinitude. Without measures were the architraves, past 
number were the archways, beyond memory the gates. Within were 
stairs that scaled the eternities above, that descended to the eternities 
below. Above was below, below was above, to the man stripped of grav- 
itating body. Depth was swallowed up in height insurmountable, height 
was swallowed up in depth unfathomable. Suddenly as thus they rode 
from infinite to infinite, suddenly as thus they tilted over abysmal worlds, 
a mighty cry arose — that systems more mysterious, worlds more billowy 
— other heights, and other depths — were dawning, were nearing, were at 
hand. 

" ' Then the man sighed, stopped, shuddered, and wept. His overladen 
heart uttered itself in tears; and he said, "Angel, I will go no farther! 
Tor the spirit of man aches under this infinity. Insufferable is the glory 
of God's house. Let me lie down in the grave, that I may find rest from 
the persecutions of the Infinite! For end, I see, there is none." And 
from all the listening stars that shone around issued one choral chant: 
"Even so it is ! Angel, thou knowest that it is. End there is none that 
ever yet we heard of." — "End is there none?" the angel solemnly de- 
manded. " And is this the sorrow that kills you? " But no voice answered, 
that he might answer himself. Then the angel threw up his glorious 
hands to the heaven of heavens, saying, " End is there none to the uni- 
verse of God ? Lo, also, there is no beginning ! " ' . . . 

" If the bond of the whole visible world be the universal magnetism, 
then the immortal, unparticled Spirit, of which this Magnetism be the 
shadow, may be that ineffable potentiality in which the real religion shall 
be, alone, possible. In this manner shall Sainthood be true of all time. 
In this ' new world of the old world,' shall miracle be possible. In this 
manner out of the familiar shall come the wonderful. In this angelic 
medium shall Heaven be ! And alone be." . . . 

" In my book I have sought to cast loose the chains which men think 



INTERIOR VISIOJN. 67 

they have of this dense, solid, soulless world of ours. Ignoring Spirit out 
of it, as a thing of no account. Eejecting miracle, because it will not sub- 
mit to a machinery which produces the world; but which is, of course, 
incompetent to explain the mastership over itself. Which machinery 
dissolves wholly at the frontier that separates the great, outside, unknown 
world, from the little, inside, known world. 

"Mine is not so much an attempt to restore to Superstition its dispos- 
sessed pedestal, as it is to replace the Supernatural upon its abdicated 
throne. 

" And if, after listening, for so long a time, to the mighty eloquence of 
Saint Paul, when heaping inference on inference and proof on proof con- 
cerning the religion of the Redeemer, of which he was then so triumphant 
a champion, Agrippa breaks up his charmed revery (in which he, himself 
touches on the confine of conviction) with the astonished exclamation : 
' Paul, Paul, thou almost persuaclest me to be a Christian ! ' may we not 
hope that, now, to the reflecting reader, such light of probability shall 
shine from our arguments, as # that he, too, shall ' almost see ' that the 
Supernatural may be possible about him even in his own familiar hours, 
and in this our modern and present day ? " , . . 

" In the work now in the reader's hand, the author proposed to himself 
these certain objects. First : to the best of his power, to establish the 
possibility of the supernatural. This science denies. Next, to prove the 
present existence of the supernatural. This faith rejects. Lastly, to 
show that all religion is only possible, not in the thinking that we believe 
(which means miracle, per se), but in the actually believing. For mankind 
may be divided — in the subject of belief in divine matters, or, rather, in 
the crediting of anything out of this world — into three great sections. 
First, into those who believe nothing ; secondly, into those who would 
believe if they could; lastly, into those who think that they believe. In 
this last large class, are included — as to believe impossible things is im- 
possible — all the conscientious and ' good ' of all the various' orders. 
People can only believe according to the best of their power; and their 
common sense stops short of the conviction of miracle ; in which, as I con- 
tend, real religion can alone lie." . . . 

" It will only be thoughts which arise out of what the author has said, 
that will set the reader musing. He will see that there lie other things 
beyond, farther reference to which in a work of this nature — indeed, in 
any work — would be improper. Those who will accept, as clear illumina- 
tion out of the fogs and the delusions of this world, are those who, by 
intelligence and by knowledge, are fitted to recognize. Ordinary readers, 
of whom, out of curiosity and the natural vivacity of mind, the author 
feels assured he will have many, will accept the same pages as most 
amusing matter, certain things in which will stimulate the profoundest 
thoughts in those who have the higher gift. For, in reading, there are 
two views." . . . 



68 INTERIOR VISION. 

"To the guardians of the more recondite and secret philosophical 
knowledge, of whom, in the societies — abroad and at home — there are a 
greater number, even in these days, than the uninitiated might suppose, it 
will be sufficient to observe that in no part of his book (though every 
reader will find — it is presumed — abundance of entertainment in it) is 
there approach, by the author, to disclosures which, in any mind, might 
be considered too little guarded." . . . 

" Respecting the real meaning and purpose of the extraordinary philoso- 
phy of the Rosicrucians — some slender portion of which this book con- 
tains, as also clo all of Dr. P. B. Randolph's works — indeed they are, 
from first to last, wholly Rosicrucian — there is the profounclest general 
ignorance. All that is supposed of them is that they were a mighty sect, 
whose acquirements — and, indeed, practice — were involved, in so much 
mystery that the comprehension of them was scarcely possible. And this 
famous secret society has been not only the problem, but the amusement, 
and converted into the romance, of modern times. On the principle — 
usually a very true one — that all of the unkriown must, therefore, be im- 
posing, the story of these Cabalists has served the turn of those who 
sought to impress. If modern writers have made use of their history, it 
has been to weave up the materials into romance. The name of the Rosi- 
crucians has been a word of might with charlatans ; they have been the 
means of exciting, with the dealers in fiction. The character of the mystic 
fraternity — its designs and objects — have been a potent charm with all 
those who thought that they possessed, through it, a power of stimulating 
curiosity. Members of the Society of the Rosy Cross have been intro- 
duced, as heroes, in novels : have mysteriously flitted as the dens ex 
machina, through tales of the imagination. From want of knowledge of 
what they were, they have been supposed everything. They have been 
wondered at — laughed at — feared — set down as magicians, and as ex- 
empted from the common lot of the children of men. Fanaticism, dream- 
ing, imposture, and, in the milder form of accusation, self-delusion; all 
this has been assumed of them. From the curious forms in which they 
chose to invest their knowledge ; because of the singular fables which they 
elected as the medium in which their secrets should be hidden, they have 
been looked upon as quite of another race — as scarcely men. But they 
have been much mistaken. 

"Justice is so late of arrival to all original thinkers— the terms of 
prejudice, and of astonishment (not in the good sense), are so long in fall- 
ing off from profound searchers — that, even now, the Rosicrucians — in 
other words, the Paracelsians, or Magnetists — are totally ignored as the 
arch-chemists to whose deep thoughts and unrelaxing labors modern 
science is indebted for most of its truths. As astrology (not the juggles 
of the stars, but the true exploration, seeking the method of being, and of 
working, of the glittering habitants of space) ; as astrology was the 
mother of astronomy, so is the lore of the Hermetic Brethren (miscalled in 



INTERIOR VISION. 69 

only one of their names — and that the popular — Kosicrucians) — the 
groundwork of all present philosophy. In its applied side, Rosicrucianisni 
is the very science which is so familiar, and so valuable. But as the Her- 
metic Beliefs are a great religion, they, of course, have their popular 
adaptation; and, in consequence, there is a mythology to them. There 
must always be a machinery to every faith, through which it may be 
known. And the mistake of people is in accepting the childish machinery 
and the coarsely (but fitly) colored mythology of a religion for the relig- 
ion itself, and all of it. Hence the Rosicrucians' supposed doctrine of the 
invisible children of the various elements ; its sylphs or sylphids, its ko- 
bolds, krolls, gnomes, kelps, or kelpies, its salamanders and salaman- 
drines, and its ondines ; hence all the picturesque but necessary catalogue 
of paraded items of belief, to constitute it a system that the vulgar might 
accept as reconcilable with sense. It is surprising that brighter intelli- 
gences have not perceived all this as only coverings and concealments. 
It ought to be seen, at once, that it is not possible to display certain 
things. Mystics are the chief priests of every religion. For perhaps there 
never was a worse-founded supposition than that knowledge was for all 
people. The minds of some classes of individuals never grow. Men who 
have arrived at the last of their mental possibilities are as much children 
to the higher intelligences, and are as unfit for their knowledge (which 
has, however, the great merit of being sure to be disbelieved), as the chil- 
dren, knowledge to whom, of higher things than their capacity admits of, 
we conceal and falsify in nursery talk. All that has, as yet, been disclosed 
of the beliefs of the Rosicrucians is fable fitted only to the comprehension 
of those who demanded a mytJws as the first necessary of a faith. As 
more and more of the light is kindled in the mind, so is the disciple intro- 
duced into the greater and greater truth. As he, himself, becomes fit, so 
are things fitted to him. And in the mystic sense (and, because it is 
mystic, the only true sense), when men leave their settled facts and move 
towards things assumed as unbelievable, they only, by an inverse process, 
as it were, approach the real facts and* leave their children's stories and 
fables. Mystical, fantastical, and transcendental — nay, impossible — as 
the studies and objects of the Rosicrucians seem in the modern ultra-prac- 
tical days, it is forgotten that the truths of contemporaneous science are 
all based on the dreams of the old thinkers. Out of natural philosophy, 
the occult brethren sought the spirits of natural philosophy. And to this 
inner heaven — so unlike ordinary life — through purifications, through 
invocations, through humbling and prayers, through penances to break the 
terms of body with the world, through fumigations and incensing to raise 
up another world about them, and to place themselves en rapport with the 
inhabitants of it, through the suspension of the senses and thereby to the 
opening of other senses — to the shutting-out of one state, in order to the 
passing into another state ; to all this the Rosicrucians sought to reach. 
; ' By the Philosopher's * Stone 'we acknowledge that we mean the magic 



70 INTERIOR VISION. 

mirror, or translucent spirit-seeing crystal, in which impossible-seeming 
things are disclosed. The menstruum or universal dissolvent, a trans- 
muting element, the elixir vitce or a power of general regeneration, magical 
means in their widest sense — a capacity to deal with the materials of 
nature until quite contrary things are evolved of them ; every phase of 
impossible knowledge has been assumed of these philosophers. That 
soon, outside of our material nature, the grand lights begin to shine, was 
their argument. But by the vulgar their accomplishments were suspected 
as the forbidden golden keys of the very treasure-house in which lie the 
means of unlocking the gates to the immortal knowledge ! 

" Those who take up these volumes will see, by what is advanced in this 
concluding chapter, that they deal with no crude or inconclusive fancies 
of merely enthusiastic, imaginative, theorizing people. Nor that they are 
to be defrauded in the unconscientious work, sought to be diverted from 
solid judgment in the flimsy attractions, nor simply seduced in the plausi- 
bilities of the book-making tribe; traitors — compelled or lured — to the 
great commonwealth of letters ! 

" The second volume of ' Curious Things ' (by Hargrave Jennings, F. E. 
C, from which copious extracts have been made herein), in which will be 
found some very original and interesting speculation, points, as its key- 
note, as it were, to the following well-supported though surprising asser- 
tion : ' That extraordinary race, the Buddhists of Upper India (of whom 
the Phoenician Canaanite, Melchizeclek, was a priest), who built the Pyra- 
mids, Stonehenge, Carnac, etc., can be shown to have founded all the 
ancient Mythologies of the World, which, however varied and corrupted 
in recent times, were originally One, and that One founded on principles 
sublime, beautiful, and true ! ' 

" And at this stage of my book, I may, with propriety, cease addressing 
in the formal and distant third person, and, in my individual capacity, 
assure the kind reader (who has accompanied me thus far, and so long) 
that the volumes upon which he has been occupied have been the full 
work, in one manner and another,' of two years, I first formed the notion 
of such a book as this at no less distant a date than nine years ; namely, 
in 1851. It was in October, 1858, that I first commenced upon these vol- 
umes. Except a certain interval from December, 1859, until the succeed- 
ing March, when. I was otherwise occupied, the task has held me, unin- 
terruptedly, down to the present. Twenty years of metaphysics are ex- 
hibited in the conclusions of this book. They have, thus, the guarantee 
of delay and of thought. Much thinking produces good acting." . . . 

" Distributed as over the wide and heaving sea of history, most numer- 
ous fragments, evidently of a mighty wreck — most wonderful the ship, 
and of materials and of design portentous and superhuman — have floated 
as to the thinker's feet. Chips as of strange and puzzling woods — pieces 
that, dissevered, bore no meaning— contradictory objects — diverse mat- 
ters, only, through keenness, with suspected relation — a beam, portions 



INTERIOR VISION. 71 

of rope, the angle of the prow, items that, by long guessing, could alone 
be discovered to have once constituted a fabric; these have been, as it 
were, gathered up, and built, into a whole Argo, humbly, in my book. 
And I have sought to reconstruct a majestic ship, and* have traced a celes- 
tial and the sublimest story, which we have heired, unknowingly, through 
the ages. Whether I have succeeded in demonstrating the philosophical 
possibility of the Supernatural, I am not to be the judge." . . . 

There are seven distinct magnetic laws, which, when obeyed and en- 
forced, cannot possibly fail of producing given effects or results ; and the 
first of these, and without which but little can be done, either with refer- 
ence to one's self or another, is persistence of purpose to a given end, 
aim, and purpose. My own career is a proof-case in point. Many years 
ago I made the discovery, elsewhere announced, that most of human ills, 
social, domestic, mental, and moral, were, the result of infractions, by 
excess, entire continence, or inversion., therefore perversion, of the sexual 
passion and instinct common to the human race. But there was no known 
cure for those evils, and I was therefore compelled to search for one in 
the regions of the unknown. With certain speculative and transmitted 
data to start from, I began, and for long years continued, the investigation of 
the matter, with a persistence, patient research, and strength of will that 
shrunk at no obstacle, admitted no possibility of defeat or failure. The 
result of that persistence is before the world, which this day acknowledges 
that I have perfected a series of nervo-vital remedials, better than have 
yet been produced on the globe, to relieve the nervous troubles of man- 
kind, no matter whether they resulted from excess or inversion of the sex- 
instinct of mankind, or from prodigal waste of life from over-study, seden- 
tary, in-door life, or excessive mental, moral, or nervous toil. 

The second law is that of Attention — condensed, steady, concentrated 
attention to, and upon, the person, object, principle, purpose or thing 
intended or attempted to be achieved. The exercise of this power will 
increase the general mental strength, rapidly. 

The third law is, Calmness, quietude ! Nothing can be gained by ebulli- 
tion, hurry, excitement, especially in matters pertaining to seership, by 
any means whatever, because it destroys the direction and volume of the 
magnetic currents, and scatters to the winds what ought to be a steady, 
waving flow of power. 

The fourth magnetic law is that of Will ; not persistence in, or of, it ; 
but will itself— the J^-shall-be-as-I-want-it-power of the soul. It is the 
central pivot about which all the others rotate, and receive their impul- 
sion toward the ends aimed at. 

The fifth law is that of Intensity, which needs no explanation. The 
sixth law is that of Polarity, — the most important one of all. because 
without it not much can be done ; with it, there is no human being but 
can be reached and influenced, to a degree perfectly astonishing, as I have 
demonstrated in a hundred cases, one of which shall serve as a lesson : — 



72 INTERIOR VISION. 

Mrs. A., for instance, having heard that I sometimes give lessons of a 
psychical character, comes to me with the old story, that her husband's 
love has grown cool, that he is attracted elsewhere, and she is wretched 
in consequence, and wants to draw him back by magnetic, or any other 
illy sure, innocent and certain means. If she already possesses a good 
magnetic mirror, all the better ; if not, I tell her to borrow one from a 
friend, and use it as hereinafter directed; and I begin by inquiring the 
height, complexion, color of eyes and hair, approximative weight, and 
build, and age of her husband. This, to determine his temperament, with 
reference to her own. Suppose she is a blonde and her husband a bru- 
nette. These are the proper relative temperaments, and such ought to be a 
happy union, and they twain disagreeing, I conclude that the fault is 
mainly her own. She is, very likely, -too cold, exacting, imperious, diso- 
bliging, heedless of him; non-caressive ; and I tell her to correct these 
faults in herself to begin with, for such a man with such a temperament will 
be quick, impulsive, passionate, restive, and full of angles; yet, armed with 
love, the blonde wife can not only subdue him, but win him from any 
brunette woman under the sun. How? Blondes are electric, brunettes 
magnetic, and very susceptible to influences steadily brought to bear upon 
them. His weakest point, and therefore greatest want, is caressive love. 
Let the blonde wife play that card, and her game is won ; and that's what 
is meant by Polarity. Let her sit before the mirror, bring up his image 
before her therein, and when it is steadily fixed before the soul's eye, let 
her bring all the other six laws to bear upon it — him crowning all, as she 
looks upon him with true, pure, wifely desire; the seventh law, which 
all understand. 

But suppose both parties are blondes. It is evident that caressive love 
won't do there, because both are of the same electric temperament, and the 
straying husband, nine chances in ten,, has become fascinated with some 
clark-eyed, dark-haired, olive-hued; passional woman, whose warm, mag- 
netic nature is altogether fascinating, and chains him with bands of triple 
steel. Well, in that case, the wife must attack him through the door of 
his higher nature, and prove to him by her steady, unchanging treatment 
of him, that soul is superior to body, mind to mere beauty, solicitude and 
interest in his affairs of more worth than whole oceans of mere passioual- 
ism. His brain and sense, then, is the point d'appui in that case — is the 
polar point. Eeverse the sexes and circumstances, if you choose to do so, 
yet the law is still the same. 

But there is another principle here, that is of equal importance, in all 
cases where a love-sundering is the result of a third party's intrusion, in- 
fluence, and power. Bepulsion is precisely as powerful as Attraction, and 
we will suppose that the fault lies neither in the wife nor husband, but in a 
female rival of the former, who of course is just as susceptible to magnetic 
influences, hatred, dislike, etc., as any other human being. Well, to illus- 
trate this very important point : Once in Cairo, Egypt, I conversed with 



INTERIOR VISION. 73 

an educated Arab on this very topic, and learned that it was a com- 
mon custom for an injured wife to bring before her the image of the 
recreant husband — by force of will — frequently using, for want of a 
better, either a glass of water, or such a magic mirror as 'is described 
in Lane's "Modern Egyptians," and in Mrs. Poole's ''English Wo- 
man in Egypt ; " but as there are plenty of Wulees, Kutbs, and der- 
vishes all over Egypt, it is quite an easy matter for such to gain an hour's 
use of a genuine glass or jewel. In this mirror, no matter whether a com- 
mon one or a diamond, she invokes the Simulacrum, or magnetic image 
of the woman who has stolen her husband's affections. "But suppose 
she don't know who the woman is? " That makes not the slightest differ- 
ence; all she has to do is to will the woman, and no earthly power can 
prevent her image, wraith, picture, or spiritual form and face from appear- 
ing. When she does so : " Back on thy head, all the misery thou hast 
heaped upon mine ! Back to thy heart the pangs thou hast made me endure ! 
In the name of love, whom thou hast disgraced ; in the name of Him who 
is omnipotent, I turn the love my (husband or lover) bears thee, into its 
opposite — dislike and hatred ; and in Allah's name I change thy mutual 
passion into foul disgust and horror. In the name of God so may it be ! " 

Now your practical people will probably laugh at such a method, such 
means, and yet in so doing they laugh at God, at human love, breaking 
hearts, and the irresistible magnetic laws of the entire universe of the 
great Supreme, and I had rather face the " devil " than the solemn prayer 
of an injured woman; for I might escape his clutches — if he had any; 
but it is certain that such a message, from such a woman, under such cir- 
cumstances, and in such a cause, would find me and fang my soul with 
horror wherever I might hide; because woman's love is the strongest 
force on earth ; her cause is the purest, strongest, and most just ; and all 
the good powers of the universe are in sympathy therewith. Nor do I be- 
lieve it possible for a failure to occur, provided the woman be in dead 
earnest, and follows up her blow day by clay, till her (magnetic) vic- 
tory is achieved. 

But injured wives are not the only ones in Syria, Egypt, Turkey, 
and Arabia, who have recourse to magnetic means in love affairs ; for 
widows resort to the identical methods, save only a change of formulas : 
" Gracious Allah, thou hast declared it is not good to be alone ; where- 
fore grant that I may (herein) behold one suited to me." This, supposing 
she has no special man for a husband in view. If she has, then she 
brings up his image, and directs her force upon him. I have heard of 
manysuccesses ; I have known of no failures ; nor do I see any reason why 
the white women of Western Europe and North America should not be 
quite as powerful and successful in these matters as their Arabian and 
Egypto-Syriac sisters, or the quadroons of the South, who notoriously prac- 
tise the same things to the same ends. If one of these women has no special 
man in view whom she desires to have for a husband, then she continues 



74 INTERIOR VISION. 

the experiments until a series of psycho-visual phantasmal faces flit across 
the strange, dark face of the magnetical glass. When one appears toward 
whom her soul yearns, as only a woman's soul can yearn, and she feels to- 
ward it as love alone can feel, she holds the simulacrum there, firmly, stead- 
ily, brings into active play the law heretofore explained, and forthwith 
impresses — wherever, whoever, he may be — the living original of that 
phantom picture, by a magnetism forceful, irresistible. The next thing is 
to find the man ; to bring the two together ; and this is done by the same 
means ; for the lucidity has often revealed localities, places, names. 
Seldom, however, is there a case like the above ; for generally the woman 
already knows of the man she wants, and then her object is to inspire 
him, and the meeting afterward is a very easy affair. 

Of course this whole thing is nothing but clairvoyance, pure and sim- 
ple, entirely magnetic from first to last, only that it is Oriental, instead 
of Western, and is reached by methods differing from those in practice 
by Europeans and Americans generally — if we except a few of the Wan- 
dering Ziugaras, and Southern Octoroons. 

In gazing into the profundities of the magnetic world through the 
agency of a mirror, it sometimes happens that very strange things are 
seen ; as a hundred letters from mirror-seers to me most unequivocally 
demonstrate. Occasionally an eye, emblematic of the very loftiest seer- 
ship and celestial guidance, is beheld, and blessed indeed are they to 
whom it appears. Recently a correspondent in Ohio wrote me that he 
had beheld such a mysterious eye, and forthwith I wrote him for particu- 
lars, — after this book was nearly all set up in type. The subjoined 
reply came to hand, which I deem of so great importance to those who 
aspire to seership, that I have caused it to be printed herein. Says the 
writer : — 

"T C , Ohio, Jan. 9th, 1869. 

"Now for the particulars . of that eye, or whatever it was. For some 
time past I have been wearing a bandage (not the improved magnetic 
arrangement, but the first crude substitute therefor) — this bandage was 
of linen, with half-a-dozen thicknesses of heavy paper over my eyes and 
forehead at night, — and tried to see through them, according to the direc- 
tions laid down in your book, ' Dealings with the Dead,' and your first 
monograph on clairvoyance. I began this practice immediately after pur- 
chasing a magnetic or magic mirror (a second-grade trinue). As I sit at 
the present time, I soon see a pale golden light, seemingly misty, fre- 
quently cut with flashes of electric or magnetic light. In this soft, pale, 
golden light, there appears a spot of deep-yellow gold moving about, 
sometimes in a circle. After watching it for some time, it resolves itself 
into something like an eye, with a dark, deep-blue pupil ; then into a ring 
of gold around the eye-centre? then into a lighter ring of blue, resem- 
bling an eye. I first saw this object two or three weeks after I bought 
the mirror. The first object I saw at all was in the evening when sit- 



INTERIOR VISION. 75 

ting back toward the bright lamp-light. I had sat about twenty minutes, 
impatient and discouraged at seeing nothing but a black mirror, when 
suddenly the appearance described above showed itself near the left- 
hand lower corner of the disk, slowly passing upward two-thirds the 
way toward the right-hand upper corner, when it suddenly disappeared. 
This has been repeated several times, with variations. Its size was that 
of a silver dime. I thought it was a usual thing, hence paid but little at- 
tention to it ; I am certainly not a seer, but thought I was tending that 
way. I was not satisfied, because I could not get a likeness when I 
wished to. I can get answers enough, but not always reliable, though 
the future may reveal something more satisfactory. 

"Yours, etc., 

Now I know cases wherein that identical spot of golden light has re- 
solved itself into an ethereal lane through which magnificent supernal 
realities have been seen ; and other cases wherein full faces have grown 
out from it, and the perfect forms and features of the dead been fully be- 
held and recognized. More than that : I have known three persons, at 
the same time, in broad daylight, see the same things, — a magnificent 
living picture, embodying the most splendid and arabesque scenery ; and 
I am satisfied that whoever can see even a single cloud pass across the 
mirror's face can, if they but pursue the matter, very soon develop their 
latent powers of clairvoyance or seership. But not all can do so, for I 
have known persons to try for quite a length of time without succeeding, 
owing to some organic difficulty born with them; persons who will 
probably never become clairvoyant while in the body. At this point I 
will state, that in any case of difficulty in developing the psycho-vision, 
the wearing of the magnetic bandage on the head at night, and the mag 
netic plate on the body by day, will go far toward removing the disturb- 
ance and obstructions, besides exerting a positive curative effect, if the 
party be at all ailing. ... 

Again, while reading the printer's proofs of this work, another letter, 
from a lady in Oswego, N. Y., reaches me, pertinent to the matter of the 
volume. I quote : — 

" Oh, let me tell you that my dear father has gone home since I left Bos- 
ton. ... I was far, far away from him. ... I was looking in my 
mirror, not even knowing he was ill. ... I saw my father's face, his 
beautiful face ; and it seemed as white as snow, and his reverend hair as 
white as his face. . . . Since that he has come to me just as I used to 
see him long, long years agone, in the splendid prime of perfect man- 
hood. And he conveyed to me these blessed words,— ' My child, I am 
vfit dead ! ' " 

Reader, such & proof of immortality can be had by no other means, and 
is worth all the medium talk, and oblique, indirect, and far-fetched com- 
munications in the world, ten thousand times over. 



76 INTERIOR VISION. 

Another proof, while I write. The Cambridge gentleman, alluded to 
a while since, has just related to me the following strange experience with 
his mirror : — 

"A short time ago while looking in my mirror, my attention was ar- 
rested by the appearance of an object resembling a vast and distant 
mountain. Even while I gazed upon its craggy outlines, it changed into 
the semblance of an enormous cloud, moving toward the top of the glass, 
dividing itself into two parts, and gradually evanishing from sight. And 
now a train of curious, but indistinct, objects began to pass in panoramic 
order across the sublime field of the marvellous glass. Suddenly the 
mirror became radiant with auroral light, and things flashed across it 
with electric speed. Barren regions, utterly destitute of verdure ; rug- 
ged mountains, awful chasms, fearful precipices passed, — immediately 
followed by a majestic sweep of planets, stars, suns, systems, galaxies, 
in awful splendor and unutterable majesty. They sailed away, and 
seemed to leave me solitary and alone, standing hard by the confines, as 
it were, of an awful, vast eternity — a stranger in an unearthly clime — 
an infinitesimal mote in space — the merest speck in existence — the 
nearest approach to Nothing, without power to comprehend the vast, 
boundless, limitless vault before, beneath, above, and around me. 
Amazed at the awful sublimity of the scene, I was on the point of calling 
for an explanation, which I undoubtedly should have obtained, when my 
solitude was broken by the entrance of one of those cast-iron, matter-of- 
fact men, whose only idea is the dollar; and to my great annoyance the 
mirror ceased to reflect the image of the Eternal, and the seance for that 
time was ended." 

The superiority of Psycho-vision to the so-called mediumism of the 
clay, for all purposes whatever, is too apparent to need further argument. 
Spiritual manifestations subserve the grand end of demonstrating the 
sublime fact of post-mortem existence, but, as a revelative power, other- 
wise is of but very little use ; and the quality of mecliumship unquestion- 
ably injurious, because it is impossible to know whether the possessing 
invisible is good or evil. A " Hearsay " is good ; but " I see and know," 
is a great deal better. The thought here intended to be conveyed, was 
very elegantly and forcibly expressed by Dr. Uriah Clark, a man who had 
the bravery to openly denounce the imposture and pretence of modern 
spiritualism, in defence of a truer and higher kind, direct from God. 

" The trifling tricks passing for modern spiritual phenomena pale into 
insignificance before the magnificent phenomena of Nature and the Reve- 
lations of God in human history. 'Yon brave o'erhangiug firmament,' 
4 fretted with golden fire ; ' yon cloud-capped mountains pushing their 
white cones into the heavens; yon glorious landscapes sweeping into the 
distant horizon ; the murmur of myriads of sentient existences swarming 
the air and earth around ; the eternal roar of old ocean, and the seolian 
melody of the morning and the evening breeze ; the songs of woodlands, 



INTERIOR VISION. 77 

and the whistling of hurricanes ; the waves and tides sweeping around 
our globe ; the world, wheeling through empires of endless space, — 
the occult forces flashing in lightnings, and rolling in thunders vibrating the 
universe ; the unseen currents coursing through every fibre of the won- 
derful mechanism of our being ; these minds within us, anon making us 
feel like heroes, martyrs, gods facing fire, flood and fiercest battle; 
these hearts of our ours pulsating with hopes bounded only by eternity, 
— all these are revelations of Almighty God, and prophets of the soul's 
unending destiny." 

A finer peroration, or a grander one, I never yet heard fall from human 
lips. Yet this is called defection, and treason against the truth. It may 
be so, but if it is, then set me down as loving all such defection, and 
glorying in just such treason. If there were more of it, this were a 
great delal better world. . . . 

Enforced celibacy, continued singleness, is, in the vast majority of 
cases, an unmitigated curse, beside being an outrageous swindle on God, 
and fraud upon Nature; alike to be dreaded and shunned by all men, and 
especially by all women, who were never created or intended to 

" Waste their sweetness on the desert air," 

by any manner of means, for which reason I fully justify any and every 
woman in getting a husband by any art or means within her power, — 
magic, magnetic, sympathetic, or, if she can do it, by the magnetic love- 
charms, — amulets, or the mysterious magnetic powders, — not of the 
modern tricksters, but of "La Petite Albert," which, however, the wise 
ones may laugh and sneer at, have, for one hundred and fifty years demon- 
strated their astonishing magnetic power in affectional directions. On my 
table lies a copy of that work, in old French, printed at Lyons in 1758, 
full of strange secrets on the points here mooted ; and which book it 
would take a large sum to buy from me. I fully agree with that author, 
that any man or woman is fully justified in resorting to any crimeless 
means in order to retain or regain the love of wife, husband, or friend ; 
hence my advice in this book, but more especially that contained in my 
works on "Love and its Hidden History," "The Master Passion; or, 
The Curtain Raised," and the forthcoming reprint of" The Grand Secret; 
or, Physical Love, its Mysteries Revealed," which I intend to incorporate 
in the two first-named books in future editions, this present year, 1870. 
Meanwhile, those who want special information can enclose a fee and 
write me for it. 

It is disheartening, not to say disgusting, to read the nauseous 
advertisements in the papers of conscienceless wretches, who have 
"love powders" for sale, which have no more virtue than a piece of 
chalk. And yet the idea involved is based upon a truth as eternal as the 
universe, which truth is, that peculiar substances can be charged with 
the efllux or aura of the human being (witness the science of homce- 



78 INTERIOE VISION. 

opathy, to say nothing about haunted houses, etc., and the startling facts 
of spiritual mediumship). The substances thus chargeable are few, rare, 
and costly ; yet such do exist, and (it takes two persons of opposite sex 
to do it) they can not only be filled with the specific magnetism of a per- 
son, but can be filled with the aura of hadean lust and passion, just as 
the Voudoos effect their incontestible magnetic spells ; or they can be 
charged with divinest love, and be impressed spiritually with a mission 
to any soul with whose body they shall come in contact. It matters not 
to me who denies this fact of the magnetic universe ; I know it, for I have 
seen a deserted wife bring to her feet her recreant lord ; I have seen a 
great actor re- win the love of his wife, wiiom another member of the same 
opera troupe stole from him, and I have seen a betrayed and almost 
ruined girl arrest the career of him who first betrayed, and then left her 
out in the cheerless cold of an infernally hypocritical world. To save 
people from being victimized by charlatans, it is as well to inform them 
that in no case can anything be charged with the power by one person 
alone ; hence, money sent for such things is worse than thrown away. 
Tioo persons, of opposite gender, one of whom must be the party who de- 
sires to affect a third one, must conjoin in the process of infiltrating, by 
will, by hope, by the breath and finger-tips, the neutral substances with 
the specific power and magnetic quality designed ; nor can it be done in 
any other way whatever, because there can be no magnetic evolution unless 
the magnetic law of minus and plus, positive and negative, magnetic and 
electric, be observed. 

But what are the materials that can be charged with a specific human 
magnetism? I reply, — The negroes of Africa and our own land know 
of and use hundreds, — herbs and roots mainly ; but science, in the hands 
of the late Baron Van Riechenbach, whose researches into the mysteries 
of light, heat, odics, chemism, and magnetics cannot be overvalued, 
has thrown a flood of light on the subject, so that now we know what 
substances are the best ; and fine steel-filings, iron by hydrogen, sugar of 
milk, chloride of gold and lactucarium, well manipulated together in 
proper quantities and exact proportions, by two persons, in a glass mor- 
tar, can be charged so powerfully as to exert a specific influence upon 
even a dumb animal, much less a human being. Perhaps it is well that 
such a preparation is very costly, requiring much time, trouble, and ex- 
pense, else wrong uses might be made thereof. And, besides that, it is 
absolutely essential that certain ingredients must be furnished from the 
person of the individual who proposes to be benefited by its use ; and 
without this the thing is useless, because the specific magnetism will es- 
cape. It is to be sewed in the garment, or worn by the party to be 
effected; not swallowed, or taken inwardly. Albeit there are substan- 
. ces that may be, to the same end. I do not propose to name the some- 
thing else, unless I know to whom it is imparted. To rakes, seducers, 



INTERIOR VISION. 79 

and libertines, no ! to heart-sick, unloved wives, yes ; and also to victims 
of the other gender. But to none others if I know it. 

There are millions of " old maids " in America and Christian Europe, 
but I doubt if as many can be found in all Turkish Europe, India, China, 
Arabia, Japan, Syria, and the Islands of the Seas, as exist within the 
limits of New England alone! Why? Because the white woman, every- 
where, is ignorant of the foundation-laws of love ! the wonderful meas- 
ures of magic (magnetic) forces underlying the master-passion of the 
human soul ; while the white man, as a general thing, is altogether too 
surface in the matter ; is not properly struck or impressed by the im- 
mense value and importance of children, nor of the principles which sub- 
tend the laws of their proper and normal generation. They are too 
much absorbed in dimes and dollars, political, and other perishable am- 
bitions; too fond of place, power and eclat; their love for woman is 
tempestuous, sensual, intermittent, superficial, based on physical organ- 
ization mainly, without either a mental or moral elan to give it soul and 
substance. They win easily but wear badly; to correct which evils, so 
far as possible, is why I write, and publish edition after edition of my 
works : " Love and its Hidden History," " The Rosicrucian's Story," " The 
Master Passion; or, The Curtain Raised," "After Death," " Ravalette,'* 
and others bearing upon the general subject, any, or all of which, if the 
lessons they convey be well observed, will smooth the surface of Mar- 
riage-land. 

Eor the benefit of those who specially require cerebral or brain mag- 
netization^ I have made arrangements with an artisan here to furnish an 
invention admirably calculated to exert a specific and positive electro- 
magnetic power on the brain, directly above the eyes, and right on the 
frontal region of the head. There can be not the slightest doubt that 
these plates will prove extremely useful in the direction indicated, and 
serve as an electric curative power as well, in catarrh, headache, neu- 
ralgia, sleeplessness, and general nervous unrest. The cost of these fine 
head magnets, as well as those alluded to elsewhere, will be five dol- 
lars. The head-plates should be bound over the eyes and forehead at 
night on retiring, and be worn there an hour or two, or all night long. 
The body magnetic plates may be worn over the breast, sides, back, 
abdomen, or limbs ; and these especially are a curative agency for all 
forms of disease, especially such as originate in disordered nerves ; not 
surpassed, if equalled, by any other in existence. 

Before closing this work, I beg to again enforce upon those who would 
attain to a positive development of lucidity, the absolute necessity of 
perfect nervous quietude during the process; because every departure 
therefrom, every excess, physical, mental, emotional or sexual — every 
abnormalness, of whatever nature, are just so many and effective bars to 
its attainment. Everything may be done in moderation, but whoever goes 
beyond the mark, treads upon the "dead line" of Clairvoyance. Will 
is the primal Power. Love the central Force. Persistence is the Road. 



80 



INNER VISION. 



To such as have faith in the things underlying outer sense, who real- 
ize that we are floating in a sea of mysteries, that the reality of all things 
lies deeply hidden behind a thick veil, which only the strong and patient 
soul can raise or penetrate ; to those especially who have provided them- 
selves during the last twelve years with good and perfect instrumental- 
ties ; and to those who have demonstrated their importance in the deeper 
researches of magnetic science and philosophy; and to such only, is this 
book and the subjoined code of rules for their use presented. And these 
rules are exact copies — rendered into English — of those in use by all 
oriental seers, with the exception of the extracts from De Novalis and 
the Masters, both of which I copy from my first work on internal vision, 
long since out of print. 

I. To have impatience (in these things) will delay, or totally prevent, 
success. But unto the true seeking soul cometh ever the real light of the 
divine magnetic power of true magic. But it cometh in its fulness only 
to the spirit that is self-possessed and calm. Remember what the Grand 
Master, himself a genius rare, and, therefore, a true seer, says : " The 
true Rosicrucian, the acolyte, the adept, reaches forth for the infinite, in 
Power and Goodness, which are the keys that unlock the gates of glory ; 
and he sees, hears, knows, and healeth the mental, physical, social, moral, 
and domestic ills of humankind, by means of his goodness and his mighty 
secret, whereof but few in an age are naturally possessed, and still fewer 
attain to, for want of will and patience. Eor only the children of the 
empyrean, by nature or adoption, are admitted to the treasure-house of 
the underlying, and overflowing real. Such, only, have the true medical and 
supernal inspiration, and inhale the diviner breath of God . . . Whoso- 
ever hath a strong will, and purity of purpose, may, if they elect, unbar 
the doors of mystery, enter her wide and strange domain* and revel in 
knowledge denied to baser souls." 

De Novalis says : " The fortuitous is not unfathomable ; it, too, hath a 
regularity of its own. He or she that hath a right sense for the fortuitous, 
hath already the signet and seal of a royal power, naturally to know and 
use, not all mystery, but much that lies very, very far beyond the ken of 
mortals who are not thus endowed by nature, or have not grown thereto 
by experience and choice. Such persons can readily determine truly that 
which to others less gifted, or with less courage, will, persistence, 
patience, and quietude, must forever remain unknown. For one with 
these qualities necessarily commands both information and obedience 
from the viewless intelligences and subordinate powers and agencies of 
the universe. Such can seek destiny for others, in her own halls ; solve 
her riddles by her own laws ; and read, as in an open book, the future, — 
the things that shall befall an inquirer in all that pertaineth to body, soul, 
health, affections, and possessions; and, still casting forward and upward 
the soul's keen glance, can discern the final result and summing up of 
being, and all by means of the phasoul and phantorama, as revealed to 



INNER VISION. 81 

the Searcher's vision on the surface of the Symph, the magic mirror, the 
peerless disk of La Trinue." 

II. There are glasses of three grades: the mule, or small, neuter; the 
female and the male. The first is small, but fine ; more a philosophic toy 
than of practical use ; has two foci, is good for clouds and flame, symbols 
and shadows ; but the magnetic filament is very thin, and the two foci not 
always mathematically true; they are quite easily warped and broken, 
cost but little, and are mainly used by fortune-telling, vagrant gypsies of 
the lowest class, and who are not able to procure a higher and better 
grade trinue. 

The mirror next in size to the imperfect sort just described, is, in 
mirrorists' parlance, called well-sexed, or female, because its foci are 
true, its polish superb, its power great, and sensitiveness most remarka- 
ble. There are magic mirrors in existence really not much superior to 
these last, valued at fabulous sums. For instance, the one that covers 
the back of the Sultan's watch, for Abdul Aziz, of Turkey, possesses one 
of rare beauty, seeing that it consists of a single diamond concaved out ; 
ajid its value is something over $ 400,000. The late Maha-rajah Dhuleep 
Singh possessed three : one an immense diamond, the other an enormous 
ruby, and the third composed of the largest emerald known in the world ; 
and yet, despite the enormous pecuniary difference in value between these 
and a trinue of the second order, it is doubtful if the former, for special 
uses, can ever equal the latter. For a glass of that grade will hold a 
magnetic film nearly eight inches in thickness, flattened on the top, quite 
as good as a first grade male mirror for seeing all things, and only in- 
ferior thereto in not affording a magnetic surface sufficiently extended to 
admit of the finer and grander phantoramic displays; and not thick 
enough to enable the seer to readily affect distant persons, or to fix the 
called-up images or simulacra of distant persons, or the locality of the 
absent living or dead. But, for all ordinary purposes, it serves admira- 
bly, and, in my judgment, is altogether superior to the celebrated crystal 
globe, belonging to Charles Trinius, of San Francisco, California, for 
which $3,000 was offered and refused. They are more expensive than the 
male-glass ; more of them are made and imported ; and they are the kind 
generally in use throughout the Western Continent. 

Not long ago, a " Eeform " paper publisher declared he had no faith in 
mirrors ; and yet, within a month thereafter, published column after col- 
umn to prove the reality of precisely the same thing. For both the prin- 
ciples, rationale, methods and results, are identical; namely, spiritual 
photography. But, in reality, the man only objected to the one, because 
it didn't originate among the faithful of his peculiar household, and com- 
mended another form of the same thing, because it did thus originate, and 
was backed up by wealthy lawyers, doctors, judges, and moneyed men, 
most of whom, judging from their style of argument, possessed more 
greenbacks than brains. I and my friends are poor, and can't afford to 



g2 INNER VISION. 

buy up the proprietors of papers, which, you -see, makes all the difference 
in the world; and hence there is a marked contrast in regard to the 
claims of wealthy Tweedledee, and impecunious Tweedledum, who are, 
after all, precisely right, because exactly on the same ground. Spiritual 
and electric photography is, and ever was and will be, true ; and crystal 
seership, and mirror visions, and such photography, are one and the same 
thing, operated by the same laws and principles, and underlaid and sub- 
tended by precisely the same wonderful esoteric chemistry ; and the only 
difference, if any, lies in the fact that but few persons can get spiritual 
photographs, while a great many can obtain very satisfactory, but eva- 
nescent, pictures, by means of a differently sensitized plate, — a fact I have 
seen demonstrated hundreds of times, as thousands of others have whom 
I never saw, heard, or knew. 

The male mirror is superior to either of the others. Its foci are four 
inches apart. The basin is over seven inches by five in the clear ovoid, and 
of course its field is immense. They are better adapted to professional 
use than private experiment, because they are capable of, and frequently 
do, exhibit three separate and distinct vivoramas, at one and the same 
time, to as many distinct on-lookers. I have often wished I could make 
these mirrors ; but that is impossible, as three • continents furnish the 
materials composing them. And even the frames and glasses must be 
imported from beyond the seas; as must also the strangely sensitive 
material wherewith the sympathetic rings are filled; concerning which 
rings and their brightening, when the future is well, and their strange dark- 
ening, when evil impends, or friends fall off, and lovers betray, the quad- 
roons of Louisiana, as well as the women of Syria, could tell strangely 
thrilling tales. And in consequence of the importance attached to thes'e 
rings and mirrors, counterfeits of them have been, in times past, put 
forward, albeit the parties who obtained them were themselves to blame, 
seeing that but one person — Vilmara — ever imported either to this 
country. 

III. No mirror or ring must be allowed to be handled much, if at all, 
by other than the owner thereof; because such handling mixes the mag- 
netisms and destroys their sensitiveness. Others may look into them, 
holding by the box in which the frame is kept, but never touching either 
frame or glass. 

IV. When the glass surface becomes soiled or dusty, it may be cleaned 
with fine soap-suds, rinsed well, washed with alcohol, or rubbed with a 
little fluoric acid, and then polished with soft velvet or chamois leather. 

V. A mirror must not be neglected; but should frequently be mag- 
netized by passes with the right hand, five minutes at a time. This is 
calculated to keep it alive, and give it strength and power. 

VI. Passes with the left hand add to its magnetic sensitiveness. 

VII. The longer time, and frequency of its use, the better it becomes. 

VIII. The somnifying or maguetizing power of the glass is obtained 



INNER VISION. 83 

to a greater degree than is possible by hand-mesmerism, by looking at its 
centre in perfect quietude. It will magnetize many who defy mesmerism. 

IX. When used, the mirror's back must always be toward the light; 
but its face never. That is fatal to its visional power. 

X. The position of the glass, held or placed, must be oblique ; that is to 
say, its top must lean from the on-looker. 

XI. "When amateurs, or several, look in at one time, it should be sus- 
pended ; but must then be touched by nobody at all. 

XII. The proof of the proper focus or position of the glass is when no 
image or thing whatever is reflected in it. Change its inclination, or 
move the head, till a clear, plain, whitish-black, deep-watery volume is 
seen, which will not be till the magnetism has time to collect. That sur- 
face is the magnetic plane of the mirror ; and in and upon it all things 
seeable in a trinue are beheld. 

XIII. The first thing seen are clouds. They appear to be on or in the mir- 
ror, but in reality are not so, but on the upper surface of the magnetic field 
above it. That magnetic plane collects there from the eyes of the onlooker. 
Persons of a magnetic temperament, — brunette, dark-eyecl, brown- 
skinned, and with dark hair, — charge it quicker, but no more effectually 
than those of the opposite temperament, — blonde or blondette, — who are 
electric in temperament. 

XIV. The male is not so easily developed into seership as the female 
sex; but become exceedingly powerful and correct when they are so. 
Virgins see best ; next to them are widows. 

XV. In all cases the boy before puberty, and the girl in her pucilage, 
make the quickest and sharpest seers. Their magnetism is pure, unmixed, 
unsexed ; and purity means power in all things magnetic and occult. 

XVI. White clouds are favorable ; affirmative ; good. 

XVII. Black clouds are the exact reverse : inauspicious ; bad. 

XVIII. Violet, green, blue, presage coming joy, — are excellent. 

XIX. Eed, crimson, orange, yellow, mean danger, trouble, sickness, 
" beware," deceptions, losses, betrayal, slander, grief, and indicate sur- 
prises of a disagreeable character. 

XX. To affect a distant person, invoke the image. Hold it by will, and 
fix the mind and purpose steadily upon the person ; and whoever he or she 
may be, —no matter where they are, — the telegraph of soul will find 
them, somewhere within the spaces. But, observe this law : Nothing is 
surer than, if the seer's purpose be evil, it will react upon him or herself 
with terrible effect, sooner or later ; wherefore all are strictly cautioned to 
be and do good, only ; for : — 

XXI. Eemember the aerial spaces are thronged with innumerable intel- 
ligences, celestial and the reverse. The latter have Force ; the former 
possess Power. To reach the good ones, the heart must correspond. In 
many ways will they respond, when invoked with prayerful feelings ; and 
they will protect and shield from the bad, — and there are countless hosts 



£4 INNER VISION. 

of the bad on the serried confines of the two great worlds, — Matter and 
Spirit : myriads of grades of them, whereof the puling, phenomenal spirit- 
ualist never yet has even dreamed. These malign forces are many and 
terrible ; but they can never reach or successfully assault the soul that 
relies on God in perfect faith, and which invokes the Good, the Beautiful, 
and the True. 

XXII. The face of the mirror should never be exposed to the chemical 
and actinic influence of direct sunlight, because it ruins the magnetic sus- 
ceptibility, just as it does the sensitized plate of the photographer; and no 
mirror once spoiled can be made good as before, without sending it to 
Europe to be re-made entirely. Moonlight, on the contrary, benefits 
them. The back must not be tampered with, or removed, for any light 
striking it will at once completely ruin all its magnetic properties ; hence 
its careful sealing. So also are extremes of heat and cold injurious to 
them, because either will destroy the parabolic-ovoid shape of the glass, 
which done, it is thenceforth useless, for it will no longer retain its hold 
upon the magnetic effluvium from the eyes, — the sensitive sheet upon 
which its clouds and other marvels are mirrored; but it will roll off like 
water from hot iron, and, in the words of Vilmara, " be good never — no 
more ! " 

XXIII. Whatever appears upon the left hand of the mirror-looker, as he 
gazes into it, is real ; that is to say, is a picture of an actual thing. 

XXIV. "Whatever appears upon the right hand, as he looks into it, is 
symbolical. 

XXV. Ascending clouds or indistinct shadows are affirmative replies to 
questions that may be asked, — if silently, it makes no difference. 

XXVI. Descending clouds are the negations to all such questions. 

XXVII. Clouds or shadows moving toward the seer's right hand are 
signals from spiritual beings, indicative of their presence and interest. 

XXVIII. When they move toward the left hand of the seer, it means , 
" Done for this time," — the seance is ended for the present. 

To conclude : I neither import, manufacture, have made, or keep these 
mirrors and rings. for sale. The small ones are of but little value; the 
next size it is almost impossible to procure, although occasionally one can 
be obtained. The large, professional, but more expensive and immense- 
ly better ones, are much easier to get hold of, but must be handled very 
tenderly. When I want either mirrors or rings, for myself or a friend, I 
either go to head-quarters and select them personally, or procure the 
services of an expert. The members of the FratemiU de la Bosecroix, are 
hereby informed that they must procure these things also, at head-quarters, 
as I have no time to spend for those who know the true points of the com- 
pass ; and all such must travel straight towards the setting sun, and at the end 
of the journey the Light will be seen ! I write this, because desirous to 
avoid unnecessary correspondence, being fairly deluged with letters on 
the subject, very few of which contain a clerk's fee, or even return pos- 



INNER VISION. 85 

tage-stamps, — a tax I propose to avoid henceforth. People also write 
me if I receive pupils in the mystic sciences ; and if I still teach the art of 
forecasting the future by Plato's Numbers and the Oriental Pfal? The 
answer is, Yes, when paid for it; not without. And the fee for replies to the 
meaning of any series of seven numbers, simple or compound, chosen at 
random from any figures from 1 to 408, is fifty cents each reply. But if 
there be seven numbers sent, chosen from between the figures 1 to and 
above 408, up to 1000, the fee for replies to any seven such numbers is 
seventy-five cents. If chosen from between 1001 and 2000, the fee is one 
dollar. If from between 2001 and 3010, the replies often occupy whole 
sheets of paper, and the fee is two dollars and fifty cents upward. The 
numbers 1 to 408 are simple ; from 408 to 1000 double ; from 1000 to 2000 
compound; from 2001 to 3010 involute numbers, all bearing strange, 
weird meanings, warnings, or prophecies, concealed beneath the under- 
lying soul number. But I am no longer able or willing to do these 
things, or to teach the art without a quid pro quo, — rent-paying, bread- 
buying, future-providing pay. 

At this point I expressly wish to caution people not to spend either 
their time or money in the pursuit of occult science, either through mes- 
merism, magnetism, or the mirror method, unless such persons have a 
natural bias, tendency, qualities of mind, or general aptitude thereto; 
for, if they do, disappointments may head them at every step of the jour- 
ney. On the contrary, I consider the power of positive seership of such 
immense value and importance, that no expense of time, patience, and 
means is too great in order to obtain it. I have known persons who 
spent much time and money in the effort to reach interior vision without 
the slightest success, because there was some primal, organizational ob- 
stacle in the way. Some have failed, and given it up entirely; but after a 
time the sight came, as it were, without effort, which was so because 
their repeated efforts had given them an impetus in the proper direction ; 
and in the fulness of time the power was duly born. I have also known 
numerous cases wherein the power of seership resulted from the very first 
trial, and thereafter continued to intensify and deepen, until their hearts 
had but little more to long for in that specific direction. To all, I say, 
If you think you have the latent quality, by all means seek to strengthen 
and develop it. But if not, then save yourself unnecessary waste of 
time and trouble. 

P. B. E., Boston, Mass., P. O. Box 3352. 



LOVE! 

ITS HIDDEN HIS TORY ! ! 
THE BOOK OF THE CENTURY ! 

MOST KEMAEKABLE BOOK ON HUMAN LOVE 

Ever Issued from the American Press. Two Vols, in One. 

A BOOK FOR 

WOMEN, YOUNG AND OLD; FOB THE LOVING; THE MABBIED, 
SINGLE, UNLOVED, HE ABT-BE FT PINING ONES; 

ESPECIALLY FOR 

UNHAPPY WIVES, AND LOVE-STABVED ONES OF THE WOBLD. 

DIRECT, EXPLICIT, AND VALUABLE COUNSEL 

CONCERNING THE 

GREAT CHEMICO-MAGNETIC LAWS OF LOVE. 



THE MASTER PASSION; 
OE, THE CUETAO RAISED. 

WOMAN, LOVE, AND MARRIAGE ; FEMALE BEAUTY, AND POWER ; 
THEIR ATTAINMENT, CULTURE,' AND RETENTION. 

Warren Chase on "Free Love" — Origin of Uterine Diseases — Terrible power of a 
Woman's hate — Love vs. Passion — The stormy life — The love-cure — The love-curse — 
Mothers in-law — Strange power of woman's love — Once-in-a-whilish love — A hint_ for 
husbands — True marriage — Gusty love — The tides of love — A hint for unloved wives 

— How to regain a lost affection — The law of fixedness in love matters — The magnetic 
attack — When woman's love has most conquering power — A secret revealed — An ex- 
traordinary thing concerning parentage! — Kelative love power of brunettes and blondes 

— Men don't know how to make love — The how! — Man's periodicity of love — Wo- 
man's _ The difference — Sex and passion after we are dead — Singular— The Cypri- 



^love" and the 

an's prayer — Love well and marry early — Beauty and Art — The chemistry of love and 
beauty — How to increase love-power — Aspasia, Diana de Poictiers and the bath of 
beauty — Peter of Lornbardy, the Rosicrucian, and the elixir of life — What it was — 
Ninon D'ljEnclos, young at ninety years, and how she did it — Strange secret of life- 
prolonging! — Vilmara and his mysterious cordial — Curious method of Madame Tallien 
for preserving her youth and beauty — The whole art of adornment — Skin, hair, eyes, 
teeth — Protozone — This section alone is worth the price of ten such bo(Jks to every 
female in the land, be she old or young ; for it contains the whole secret of magnetic 
female beauty — The magnetic plate for«nervous ladies — Turkish Harems — how they 
beautify themselves — Toilette articles — How to make and use them — Bad effects of two 
in one bed — Fun as a doctor — Difference between the sexes — Rather cu/ious — The Roman 
daughter — Touching story — A latter-day sermon — The social evil — Extraordinary means 
resorted to by the higher grades of " loose women " to preserve their beauty, and restore 
it when lost — Protoplasm, and how to increase it — Huxley's theory — Scandal — Running 
upstah-s, and the heart disease — Freeman B. Dowd, Luke Burke, Charles Swinburne — 
Peerless trio— Boyd of Minneapolis on true marriage — Divorce, is it a real remedy for an 
unhappy marriage? — The Woman's Grand Secret — Beecher on "The secret sins of 
youth" — The chemical origin of "sin" — Portrait of the Girl of the Period, and the 
girl of the future — Marriage in 1970 — A startling scientific fact concerning human 
blood — What becomes of harlots after death ? — Tests of the love nature by the color 
of the eyes — Very singular, and true — A certain cure for dyspepsia, page 100, second 
part — Whom not to marry — A philosophic caution to those who love — The essence of 
marriage is consent — What the Rosicrucians are — The rights of a lover and husband 
are the same — A lover's and brother's not so — The true rule of divorce — Legislators, 
take notes of this — Heart, not mind, carries sex along with it — Marriage not depend- 
ent on a ceremony — A fashionable woman's prayer — Prayer of the Girl of the Period — 
Why some people marry — A Hottentot's picture of heaven — To physicians especially 

— An entirely new theory of nervous diseases, and methods of cure — Prompt, certain, 
and complete — Trouble in the love nature the cause of untold sickness — Means 
of cure — The use and abuse of amatory passion — Change of nervous centres — Frightful 
consequences thereof — Discovery of the philosopher's stone ! — Magnetic exhaustion, 
and the remedy — Voodoo John, of New Orleans, who completely subjugated woman — 
Magnetic fascination — Vampires — Life leeches — Consumers of souls — A thrilling 
warning — The whole terrible mystery of Voodooism revealed — The cause and cure of 
all evil — Want of true love — The death of love and its life — Valuable hints to medi- 
cal men — Anew theory of cure and a faultless one — The celebrated "Leg-Love" Secret 
of Gautier — Dickens' trouble with his wife — Why wives generally ruin their talented 
husbands — A hint to women — A very curious paper on incest — Proving a man's brother 
to be nearer of kin to him than is his father or mother — Byron's alleged incest — Singular 
cause of wedded misery and discontent — Its certain cure — The only cure for the deadly 
personal sin — Why wives hate their husbands — General Grant Wilson on marriages 
among men of genius — A splendid paper, by a splendid man — Socrates, Xantippe, 
Aspasia, Diotima, Domenichino, Milton, Alecto, Salmasius, Bacon, Coke, Shakespeare, 
Montaigne, Moliere, La Fontaine, Rousseau, Beaumarchais, Whitlocke, Saville, John 
Wesley, Dryden, Steele, Coleridge, Sterne, Churchill, Byron, Shelley, Bulwer and his 
wife, Fuseli, Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, Spinosa, Kant, Gibbon, Barrow, Chillingworth, 
Hammond, Poe, and other genii — Why unhappy benedicts are celibates — Carlyle and 
his wife — How the Scotch giant lives at home — The underlying law of human genius 

— A hint to mothers — Freeman B. Dowd — Grand master of the Rosicrucians — Refer- 
ence to seership, and the seven magnetic laws of love, whereby the unloved gain it, and 
lost loves are firmly rebuilded — A strange and mighty power — How to retain a hus- 
band's love — Old-maidhood-and how to avoid it — The how! [The work called " Seership," 
containing the Oriental Woman's Art of Love, and direct statement and application of 
the seven magnetic laws of love, was put to press after the above volumes were written. 
Its price is three dollars, and can be had only direct from this office.] 

Of the large double volume, octavo work on Love and the Master Passion, the universal 
testimony is that no other book in any language is so full, plain, clear, explicit, and ex- 
haustive. Its price in $2.50, and 30 cents postage — direct from my office only. 

I have just completed my work on Seership, and will forward a synopsis of contents 
Upon application by letter, which must contain two stamps. 

P. B. RANDOLPH, Boston, Mass. 



NERVO-VITAL REMEDIAL WORKS, 

BOSTON, MASS. 

We respectfully announce, that, with improved facilities, and 
larger capital, we are now producing a very superior grade of 
protozonic and protoplasmic remedies, and at greatly reduced 
prices, and of a finer quality than is possible by any other medico- 
che mical house in the country ; besides which, we own the sole 
rights of the processes on the continent. 

These remedials are the only ones that will cure the effects of 
solitary vice in either sex ; — brain-softening, loss of semen, incipi- 
ent insanity, deficient vitality, inpotence, sterility, and all troubles 
originating in nervous exhaustion. They are made solely by. Dr. 
P. B. Randolph, their discoverer, and are sold only by this house, 
and its authorized and certificated agents. Special prescriptions 
will be made for any given case, either from diagnosis and descrip- 
tion, or analysis of urine by ourselves or others, as certain cases 
require different combinations of the organic and medicinal ele- 
ments constituting the bases of the series. 

The improved Nervo-Vital remedies will hereaftef be sold at the 
following (considering the enormous cost of their production) ex- 
ceedingly low scale of prices : Concentrated Protozone, abso- 
lutely pure, the most perfect nervous invigorant in the world, for 
physicians' and druggists' use, in pound flasks, $5 each ; Phosodtn, 
pure, a splendid remedy for all forms of nervous disease, exhaustion, 
debility, brain trouble, mental wandering, and unequalled in com- 
plaints peculiar to females and persons of sedentary habits, in 
pound flasks, $5.00. 

Double concentrated Neurine, pure, a magnificent chemical tri- 
umph ; a perfect agent for the cure of Dyspepsia, and blood troub- 
les, and the purest tonic invigorant stomachic cordial, in flasks, 
$5.00 each. Barosmyn, an excellent agent, and unequalled for all 
cases of kidney and bladder difficulties, the diosma crenata being 



NERVO-VITAL REMEDIAL WORKS. 

skilfully combined with phymylle, glycerine, and Protozone ; in 
pound flasks, $5.00. 

We also prepare an Alexipharmic Remedy, believed to be a 
perfect antidote to all poison in the blood, from a simple rheum to 
the most inveterate scrofula, putrid, ulcerous and syphilitic taint 
in the blood, bones or any organ, no matter of how long standing, 
or what its type. Such forms of disease cannot exist where these 
remedials are faithfully used ; price $5.00. Chlortlle, for the 
use of consumptives and delicate anaemic cases ; per flask $5,00. 
We also prepare a fine Rheumatic Remedy, superior to any yet 
evolved by medico-chemical research ; price in pound flasks, $5.00. 

We prepare a special, and very powerful, yet harmless remedy, — 
only when ordered, which is a specific for Diabetes, Bright' s Dis- 
ease of the Kidneys, Leucorrhoea, Gleet, from excess, Strains, Kid- 
ney and Bladder, Catarrh, Ulcerations, and other causes, unexcelled 
by any article ever manufactured, and as yet without an equal ; price 
$5.00 and $7.00. None of these celebrated agents are in any sense 
" Patent Medicines," but a series of well-tested medical agents, 
believed to be superior to all others in existence for their peculiar 
specialities. 

The majority of cases require a course of from two to four of 
these remedials, and we discount twenty per cent, under such cir- 
cumstances. Dealers and right-holders are allowed a discount in 
proportion to the amounts ordered at one time. Remittances must 
be made by P. O. orders, or Registry. 

We are prepared to supply all orders, and to give territorial 
rights for the exclusive sale and use of these preparations, and to 
give special instructions to those who desire to make nervous dis- 
eases in all their forms a speciality ; said instructions embracing 
an entirely new system of gynaecology, enabling the practitioner to 
treat female complaints, and obstinate renal and brain diseases, 
with a power and success never attained before the discovery and 
use of the above series of Nervo-Vital remedials. 

Randolph & Co., Special Chemists. 
Laboratory and Office, Boston, Mass. 



EXTRAORDINARY ANI> THRILLING WORK. 

AFTER DEATH: 

THE 

DISEMBODIMENT OF MAN. 

The Publishers are happy to announce a new edition of this masterly- 
work, — the most thrilling and exhaustive book on the subject ever 
printed. 

BE VISED, CORRECTED AND ENLARGED. 

Price, $2 ; Postage free. 

BOSTONT: 

RANDOLPH AND COMPANY. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I. 



PAGE 

Why? Is there any God?— Are Souls created here ? — Certain very Important 

Questions . . . 



CHAPTER II. 



Why is Man Immortal ? — The Reply — Singular Proofs — Invisible People — 
" Religion V the Liver — What is God ? — The Answer — The Exact Locality 
of Hell — White-Blooded People of the Future — An Astounding Prophecy 25 



CHAPTER III. 



The Rationale of going up — Matter's Immateriality — About the first Human 
Couple — Extent of the Sky — The Origin of Negroes and other Races not 
Identical — The Grand Secret of the Ages Revealed 41 



CHAPTER IV. 

Analysis of a Human Spirit and Soul— Why it is Proof against Death— Singular 
Disclosures about the Parts and Organs of a Spirit — The Sex Question 
settled — Coquettes and Dandies in the other Life — Spirits' Dress and 
Clothing — The Fashions among Them — Do we carry Deformities with us 
there ? — What they do in Spirit Land — The Soul, and where its Seat is in 
the Body — Idiots, Thieves, " Stillborns," Cyprians, Maniacs, Insane, Mur- 
derers, Ministers, Suicides, when in the Spirit World — Monstrosities — Why 
Human Beings resemble Beasts — A Curious Revelation — Some Stillborns 
Immortal — Others not — Why ? — " Justification " of Suicide — Consequences 

of Suicide — Harlots even there — Judgment-Day 51 

V 



NERVO-VITAL EEMEDIAL WOEKS. 

skilfully combined with phymylle, glycerine, and Protozone ; in 
pound flasks, $5.00. 

We also prepare an Alexipharmic Eemedt, believed to be a 
perfect antidote to all poison in the blood, from a simple rheum to 
the most inveterate scrofula, putrid, ulcerous and syphilitic taint 
in the blood, bones or any organ, no matter of how long standing, 
or what its type. Such forms of disease cannot exist where these 
remedials are faithfully used ; price $5.00. Chlortlle, for the 
use of consumptives and delicate anaemic cases ; per flask $5,00. 
We also prepare a fine Rheumatic Remedy, superior to any yet 
evolved by medico-chemical research ; price in pound flasks, $5.00. 

We prepare a special, and very powerful, yet harmless remedy, — 
only when ordered, which is a specific for Diabetes, Bright' s Dis- 
ease of the Kidneys, Leucorrhoea, Gleet, from excess, Strains, Kid- 
ney and Bladder, Catarrh, Ulcerations, and other causes, unexcelled 
by any article ever manufactured, and as yet without an equal ; price 
$5.00 and $7.00. None of these celebrated agents are in any sense 
"Patent Medicines," but a series of well-tested medical agents, 
believed to be superior to all others in existence for their peculiar 
specialities. 

The majority of cases require a course of from two to four of 
these remedials, and we discount twenty per cent, under such cir- 
cumstances. Dealers and right-holders are allowed a discount in 
proportion to the amounts ordered at one time. Remittances must 
be made by P. O. orders, or Registry. 

We are prepared to supply all orders, and to give territorial 
rights for the exclusive sale and use of these preparations, and to 
give special instructions to those who desire to make nervous dis- 
eases in all their forms a speciality ; said instructions embracing 
an entirely new system of gynaecology, enabling the practitioner to 
treat female complaints, and obstinate renal and brain diseases, 
with a power and success never attained before the discovery and 
use of the above series of Nervo-Vital remedials. 

Randolph & Co., Special Chemists. 
Laboratory and Office, Boston, Mass. 



EXTRAORDINARY AND THRILLING WORK. 

AFTER DEATH: 

THE 

DISEMBODIMENT OF MAN. 

The Publishers are happy to announce a new edition of this masterly- 
work, — the most thrilling and exhaustive book on the subject ever 
printed. 

REVISED, CORRECTED AND ENLARGED. 

Price, $2 ; Postage free. 

BOSTON: 

RANDOLPH AND COMPANY. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I. 



PAGE 



Why? Is there any God? — Are Souls created here ? — Certain very Important 

Questions , . . , . G 



CHAPTER II. 



Why is Man Immortal ? — The Reply — Singular Proofs — Invisible People — 
" Religion '.' the Liver — What is God ? — The Answer — The Exact Locality 
of Hell — White-Blooded People of the Future — An Astounding Prophecy 25 



CHAPTER III. 



The Rationale of going up — Matter's Immateriality — About the first Human 
Couple — Extent of the Sky — The Origin of Negroes and other Races not 
Identical — The Grand Secret of the Ages Revealed 41 



CHAPTER IV. 

Analysis of a Human Spirit and Soul— Why it is Proof against Death— Singular 
Disclosures about the Parts and Organs of a Spirit — The Sex Question 
settled — Coquettes and Dandies in the other Life — Spirits' Dress and 
Clothing — The Fashions among Them — Do we carry Deformities with us 
there ? — What they do in Spirit Land — The Soul, and where its Seat is in 
the Body — Idiots, Thieves, " StiUborns," Cyprians, Maniacs, Insane, Mur- 
derers, Ministers, Suicides, when in the Spirit World — Monstrosities — Why 
Human Beings resemble Beasts — A Curious Revelation — Some StiUborns 
Immortal — Others not — Why ? — " Justification " of Suicide — Consequences 

of Suicide — Harlots even there — Judgment-Day 51 

V 



VI CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE V. 



PAGK 



Are Animals Immortal ? — The Absorption-into-God Question Settled — Phan- 
tomosophy — A Wonderful Spirit Power — Its Rationale — Kationale of 
Delirium Tremens — A Singular Fact — How Thoughts are Read — The 
Explanation of Memory — A New Revelation — Genius — A New Faculty— 
Animals of the Spiritual World 70 



CHAPTER VI. 

Very Startling Questions and their Answers — Relationship in Heaven — The 
Affinity Question Settled — Is Death Painful ? — Death by Hanging and 
Drowning — The Sensations thereof— Effect of Bad Marriages — Fate of 
Duellists, Soldiers, Executioners — Those who Die of Fright or Horror — 
Drunkards — Obsessions — The Fate of Genius, and its Origin — Crime-En- 
gendering Dangers — Haunted People and Houses — A Curious Cause of 
Mental Suffering — Music over there — Why do People marry over there ? — 
Reply 75 



CHAPTER VII. 

location, Direction, Distance, Formation, and Substance of the Spirit Land — 
A New Planet near the Sun — The Spirit Worlds Visible to the Naked Eye — 
The Throne of God, its Nature, Bulk, and Locality — Location of the Final 
Home of Spirits — The Origin of the first Human Soul — Uncreated Souls — 
The Rain of World-Souls and Soul-Seeds — Location of the Seven Grand 
Spheres or Zones — Length of an Eternity — Our Spirit World Visible on 
Clear Nights — Its Depth and Dimensions — Distance and Substance of the 
Spiritual World — How we go to and from there — Plants and Animals of 
Spirit Land— Scenery about the Spiritual Sun — Boreal and Austral Suns 
now forming at the Poles — Vampires— Weight of a Spirit .... 85 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Spiritual Rivers — How we get to Spirit Land — Sects in Heaven — Fairy 
People — The Complexion Question in Spirit Life — The Languages used in 
Spirit Land — Age in Spirit Life — The Question of Relationship in Spirit 
Life — Our Occupations there — Our Names in Heaven — Number of People 
in Spirit Life — Good Peter Cooper, the Millionnaire — Substance, Food, 
Drink, Curious — Very — " Free Love " — Singular 106 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Heaven of Savages —First Grand Division of the Spirit Land — Music up 
there, and how made — Houses, Towns, Cities, in the Upper World — How 
Built, and of what Material — Breath up There — The Female Thermometer 
— Curious, but True — A Wonderful Spiritual Fact — Jewels there — Schools 
in Heaven 118 



CONTENTS. VII 



CHAPTER X. 



PAGE 



The Question of Sex and Passion in Spirit Life — An Astounding Disclosure 
Thereanent — Are Children Born in the Upper Land ? — New and Strange 
Uses for the Human Organs when we are Dead — The Philosophy of Con- 
tact — Curious — Still more so — Loves of the Angels 132 



CHAPTER XI. 

Certain Organic Functions in the Spirit World — Eating, etc., there — Analysis 
of a Spirit — Its Bones, Organs, etc. — The Actual Existence of the Trees 
of Life and Knowledge — Heaven as seen May 22, 1866 — Institutions, 
Employments, and Pleasures of the Upper Land — Description of the People • 

there dead 10,000 years ago ■ 141 



CHAPTER XII. 

Extent of the Universe — Description of a Heaven — Curious Power of a Spirit's 
Eye — Animals in Spirit Land — A Palace there — Lectures — Studies in 
Heaven — Loveometers and Soul-Measures — Contents of a Museum there - 
Marriage up there — Love also - Duration of an " Eternal Affinity " . . 149 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Why "Eternal Affinity" is not true — Effect of a Bad Marriage on the Victim, 
after Death — How Souls are Incarnated — Why Souls Differ — The Second 
Grand Division of the Spirit Land — Seas, Ports, Vessels, Sailors, in Spirit 
Land— Hunting Scenes there — The Presbyterian Heaven . , 169 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Sectarian Heaven, and the Strange Discussions there — The Mahometan Heaveu 
— The Third Grand Division of Spirit Land — Sanitoria — Hospitals for the 
Sick, and who they are — The Wonderful Herb, Nommoc-Esnes — Its Uses — 
The Fourth Grand Division of Spirit Land - The " Spheres" — The Heaven 
of Half-Men — Fifth Division 174 



CHAPTER XV. 

Origin of the Spirit World — The first two Spirits — The Terrific Impending 
Danger of the Destruction of this Earth — A Fearful and Actually Exist- 
ing Possibility — An Approaching Change in the Earth's Axis — A New 
Planet near the Sun — A New King about being thrown off from it, and 
the Formation of other Planets by Cometic Condensation — Uprising of 
a New Continent — Destruction of the Asteroids — Gold Hills — How the 
First Spirits discovered the Spiritual Land and went to it — The Rev. 
Charles Hall's Arrival in Spirit Land — His Surprise — The Earth a 
Living Organism 



VIII CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

PAGE 

The Sixth Grand Division of Spirit Land — Things Taught there — The Origin of 
all Matter — The Lost Pleiad Found —A Lightless Sun — The Law of Period- 
icity — Soul-storms — Credo — A New Revelation of a most astounding Char- 
acter — The Seventh Grand Division of Morning Land — Its Superlative 
Glories — Will Man lose his Identity in the Godhead ? — A Mournful, yet 
Glorious Fact — A Home for all, all breaking, bleeding Hearts, all sorrow- 
laden Souls— A new Revelation concerning Sleep — Why a Spirit cannot be 
Dismembered — Curious — The Coming Man — Miscegenation— Soul's Flight 
to the Solar Zone and Second Girdle 192 

• 

CHAPTER XVII. 

A Philosophical Error corrected — Conclusion ........ 207 



APPENDIX. 

Part II. A. — Discoveries — The Grand Secret of Life 227 

Part II. B. — New Discoveries — Things Worth Knowing . . • • • 245 

Part II. C. — New Discoveries — Things Worth Knowing ..... 257 



Also just published, a new edition of the 

PREDICTION CHART, or SYMPH. 

PRICE $1; POSTAGE FREE. 

This extraordinary production is based on the Oriental idea of the 
" pfal." Certain it is that no oracle ever yet produced, so marvellously 
indicates the occurrence of events yet unacted on the theatre of personal 
life as this, and withal it is so simple that a child can comprehend it in an 
instant. Close the eyes, ask a question or leave the event to answer it- 
self; raise the finger and let it fall upon the Chart. The answers and the 
prophecies will astonish you, and the direct agency of the loved and gone 
before, be clearly recognized. It must be used to be known. 



" 1 1 3 82 



# 

«* 



°* 






*0« 



o V 






.•*«?. 




• °- y.-afcS. &*£&?* /.-aiiX * 
><? v^V %*JB*v V™V ^ 



;• «** % -WWS . $ % 






• »• A 



-P* .♦ 



fc^tf .fflfc *<? : 



***..•-..« 

N * 



^'•W/ 



* «? «\ o 1 ^ 



■P > .» 






0V *o.»* 

°o ^ 

-of 



I* 



* ; 







.** ^,-^v c«\.;j*fr* o o /.^A o° 









r oV 
















i^ . « • «* 



O^ '. . . » A <• ♦'7VJ' .0*" ^>, 










V^ V •ill'* 



<i.. '•"• *« 



* ! 












JVC,' 










4 «°<£S§SWV ~r 








.• ?*+. V 




c u , 



/rT«' .o 5 ^ **•,<•' ,«* 



;♦ j> 



>* •••• 




>\,i^v*«a 






V I?** 



V ^ * 



s^V %*&*\? %.*^v v^-V 






A** *k^h9a # » A A ^*VRlB^* *C*k A* *a^^*\>, 













■p* V 



J* 4 A • 






r e>V T 









^..i^..\ 















••♦ '^ 






> -^ 



5 ^o^ :j 

4L> *ft «1 






O^ "o 



rf>%^&.% 










^* ; JS ; ^^ •'^^: V* -'Jill'- ^/ ." 



• A>«^ 

♦ aV ^ . 






': .9"*K • 



> • o 




$■< 



tX J^^ MAR 82 



N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 









Swii 



Rani 
Ural 



mm 



tail 



m 

9B89 



B8Z 



SsbSsoE 



HMM 
ami 



gBJII 

HI 



§&& 



■< 



hb 






9S33S 



s 



: H1^» 



ibhB 

iFfinfirflTnpi 

M jfi S fig a 



ilsffil 



